Former Miss America promotes community involvement, diversity

Not every veterinarian can be a staff correspondent for a major media network. But every veterinarian can borrow a chapter out of Dr. Debbye Turner's book when it comes to local media presence and community involvement.

"Form a relationship with the local television station and do regular, if not frequent, healthcare segments about pets," says Turner, staff correspondent for CBS' The Early Show. "Become the expert in that community as it relates to animals, so the next time that, God forbid, there is an animal abuse case, or even if there is bioterrorism, the local news director or assignment editor thinks of that local veterinarian as an expert and a resource for comments on that.

"Veterinarians are known as the gentle doctor. We tend to be modest, self-effacing and very retiring, and it's to our detriment now," she says. "We need to be the gentle giant."

Turner began taking the podium for industry issues at an early age. She was a senior at the University of Missouri-Columbia College of Veterinary Medicine when she became the 70th Miss America, and she was the first in the pageant's history to have an official platform: "Motivating Youth to Excellence." Her public speaking engagements during the next few years — one year as Miss America and a couple more on the public-speaking circuit while she was a spokesperson for Ralston Purina Co. — propelled her participation with families, communities and mentoring programs, all things the veterinary community desperately needs to cultivate at the grassroots level, she says.

"We've had the luxury in years past of waiting for those who love animals or have a passion for husbandry to come to the profession, and I don't think we have that luxury any more; that is part of the challenge the profession faces," she says.

Practitioners can influence veterinarians of tomorrow by taking an active role in the community, speaking at elementary schools during career days, setting up free pet screens at malls, and exhibiting a booth at street fairs or other community events so a practice and the profession are more visible.

"When the mall is doing free high blood pressure screenings, set up a table next to them and do free heartworm screenings or feline leukemia screens," she says.

Turner was captivated by the profession through her local veterinarian, Dr. Jack Jones. She says her mother was known in the neighborhood for her compassion for animals that might have been abandoned or abused, so the Turners spent a lot of time with Dr. Jones.

"We were always in his office, and I admired this gentle man that not only took great care of our pets, but he would take the time to ask my mom how Debbye was doing in school or how the test went for Suzette, my older sister," Turner says. "I remember saying one day to my mom that I thought Dr. Jones was cool. And to my mother's credit, and according to her wisdom, she suggested that I ask him if I could hang around in his clinic, and of course I did. Starting at age 13, my summers, holidays and weekends would be spent as a volunteer in his clinic. I wanted to be just like him, and it's going to take more of that, but no longer can the Dr. Joneses of the world wait for the Debbyes of the world."

Diversity challenge

Though it might be difficult to balance the rigors and demands of private practice with what Turner calls the necessity of community relations and public outreach, she says the recognition will pay off in the long term. Community notoriety likely will spur a more diverse profession, too.

Turner was keynote speaker at the inaugural American Veterinary Medical Association Diversity Symposium July 16 during the organization's annual convention in Minneapolis. DVM Newsmagazine caught up with the 1990 Miss America via telephone after the conference.

"Any profession is only as good as its members and the membership should reflect the community. The face of the veterinary profession should reflect the face of the nation because not just upper-middle-class Caucasians own pets," she says. "Everybody owns pets, and those pets deserve a high caliber of care and in some cases, the most effective representative is a representative of that community both at attracting future veterinarians to the profession as well as providing effective care."

Though grassroots efforts to diversify the profession likely will yield enthusiastic long-term results, the onus for diversity in the short term might be spearheaded by deans of admissions.

"We cannot produce out of thin air veterinarians with diverse backgrounds in gender and ethnicity, so it's not just up to the deans or admissions boards of veterinary schools, but that's the backbone of it," she says. "It's the fulcrum of the pendulum.

"We see (the importance of diversity) in other facets of life: genetic diversity is essential for the survival of the species. We know that alloys provide properties in metals that makes them sometimes superior to pure metals," she says. "We know that a portfolio is healthier, lasts longer and has less risk if it is diversified."