Dr. Renée Alsarraf (DVM ’91) dedicated herself to treating cancer in canine patients for more than two decades. Then, at age 51, she was diagnosed with cancer herself. Upon receiving her cancer diagnosis, Alsarraf found that the empathy she had for her patients went both ways; her furry friends seemed to uniquely understand her difficult journey, and they showed her the power of positivity and unconditional love. Alsarraf put these reflections and more into her book Sit, Stay, Heal: What Dogs Can Teach Us About Living Well.
After graduation, I did a rotating internship in medicine and surgery at the Animal Medical Center in New York City. There, I fell in love with oncology. I did a medical oncology residency at the Animal Medical Center, and then I stayed on a little bit longer to study radiation therapy.
Moving to Kansas City in 1994, I went into referral specialty practice. I was the only veterinary oncologist in the whole state. While there, I was also able to get radiation therapy off the ground. We actually started it in a human hospital. In the mornings, before the human patients came in for their radiation treatments, my technician and I would drive the dogs and cats over that needed radiation and treat them before the start of our workday. It made for some very early mornings, but it was worth it.
After three years in Kansas, I ended up in New Jersey, working with a big group at Animal Emergency and Referral Associates, but I owned my own practice within that group. I hired another medical oncologist and five oncology nurses, and later, we were able to open a second referral site at a different specialty hospital.
Concurrently, in my free time, I worked with six other veterinarians to create the very first stand-alone CT, MRI, and radiation therapy center for animals. We treated patients from far and wide. In 2015, I sold both my medical oncology business as well as my RT center. I was fortunate to stay on seeing patients for a few years. And then when COVID hit, I wrote a book!
I learned that I never, ever, want to lose my sense of compassion and empathy for the pet family that I am trying to help. To sit next to a family, not in front of them, to understand what they are going through, and to support their decision process, that, to me, is what life is all about.
She worked to get the group up and running with the help of donations and was soon able to hire a licensed therapist who specialized in bereavement. The group, which still meets on the second and fourth Thursday of every month, is free for anyone to join. “That was pretty special,” Alsarraf reflects. “I connected with a lot of pet parents who were grieving but didn’t really have a place to turn. It was another way I realized the importance that the human-animal bond plays in our lives.”
A longer version of this profile and other stories can be found at cvm.msu.edu/vetschool-tails.
I had always wanted to write a book. As a veterinarian, I meet so many people who say, “I’ve always wanted to be a veterinarian!” and I felt the same way about authors. In the summer of 2018, I was diagnosed with cancer, and underwent surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. At that time, I didn’t do any social media, yet I found it took too much out of me to have conversations over and over with friends who reached out to see how I was doing. So, I emailed 75 of my “closest” friends every couple of weeks to provide updates. One of those friends was a very prominent literary agent in New York City, and she said, “Why don’t you write a book? You really should write a book.”
I blew it all off at the time. Once my treatment came to an end, my husband and I went to Rhode Island for a long weekend. Reading the hotel newspaper horoscopes, I saw under Scorpio it said, “You should begin writing your book today.” Two days later, I began writing the book.
A lot is demonstrated in my book on how our dogs can teach us incredible life lessons. They are our unconditional companions, providing support and guidance for when we struggle. And we all struggle. There I was as a veterinarian, always taking care of them, but then when I needed to be taken care of, they understood without ever using words. Sadly, my own dog developed cancer while I was undergoing therapy. That’s something you never want to go through with your four-legged companion, but we did, and my
dog was right there by my side. Without words, canines understand our feelings and emotions. They fill a need just when we need it the most 