July 2019 by Lori Bierbrier, DVM

Audience: Veterinary Team

Video Length: 38:03

Access to basic veterinary care is a hot topic in veterinary medicine. Pet owners living in underserved communities feel the stress of having limited access to affordable and accessible veterinary care. Surveys conducted by the ASPCA reveal that more than half of respondents who rehomed or surrendered animals would have kept their pets if they had been offered some assistance including low cost or free veterinary care.

Whether you operate a shelter, low cost spay/neuter clinic, or other type of practice, this workshop will use the ASPCA Primary Pet Care program as a case study for how to incorporate affordable and accessible preventive and basic veterinary care into your organization by assessing the needs of your community and carefully establishing service guidelines. This presentation was recorded at the 2019 ASPCA Maddie's® Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

About Lori Bierbrier, DVM

Dr. Bierbrier is the Medical Director of the ASPCA Community Medicine department which provides over 46,000 high quality, high volume spay/neuter surgeries and over 5000 basic and preventive care services to pets in underserved communities in New York City through mobile and brick-and-mortar facilities. In her role, Dr. Bierbrier applies knowledge of the veterinary profession, veterinary education and the methods of delivery of affordable and accessible veterinary care to the ASPCA's organization-wide goals and impacts the philosophy of direct veterinary care provision by the ASPCA in NYC.

Dr. Bierbrier grew up in Canada where she received her Bachelor of Science at McGill University and then her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College in 1999. Prior to working with the ASPCA, she worked for 9 years in private small animal practice in Brooklyn, NY. Dr. Bierbrier co-authored the chapter Spay/Neuter Surgical Techniques in the Field Manual for Small Animal Medicine published by Wiley in 2018. In addition to her veterinary work in the United States, Dr. Bierbrier is also involved in performing and teaching spay/neuter surgeries in Mexico and other international locations.

When she is not involved in her "animal world", her other interests include hiking, camping, gardening, baking and reading. She shares her Brooklyn life with her husband, daughter, dog, cat and occasional foster animal.