Katherine Hansen is Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and a board-certified specialist in radiation oncology. She joined Bay Area Veterinary Specialists in 2023 following a deep career in academia and research. Below, she brings us along on her career journey and explains how she developed a love for using radiation to help patients.

I have to tell you about how I ended up being a veterinarian in order to explain why I chose to specialize in radiation oncology.
When I finished undergrad, I was not sure what I wanted to do. I had a B.S. in Biology and got a job at The Human Genome Project in Washington, D.C. This was in the early days of human genome sequencing, so it was really a watershed moment in time.

I was doing a small job looking for genes with a mutation that might be causing cancer.
I told the principal investigator I was working with that I was interested in veterinary medicine, but that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for a career. So, he connected me with someone at the National Institutes of Health who was a veterinarian and cancer researcher.
I worked in his lab for two years, took some extra classes, then went to veterinary school having spent a few years in cancer research. When I went into my fourth year of veterinary school, I spent a week on the radiation service at University of California-Davis.

That’s when I was totally bitten by the radiation bug.
I went off and did my internship at the University of Pennsylvania and at that point, I knew veterinary radiation was what I wanted to do.

The thing I like most about radiation oncology is that it feels like individualized care.
The tumor types that are good candidates for radiation are interesting. For radiation, we create a 3-D model of the body and focus on the part of the body we’re trying to treat. Every patient has a unique profile and case, and that’s what I love about it.
There’s an artistic element to creating the plan and model based on the shapes of the patient’s body. When I began, this was a new specialty – but it’s something that has evolved rapidly over the last 20 years.

One of my most interesting cases at VCA so far was a cat with a pituitary tumor that was causing diabetes.
It’s a known, albeit uncommon problem in cats. She also had significant heart disease, so she wasn’t a strong candidate for anesthesia. With the newer types of radiation we have, though, we were able to deliver more targeted treatment. The cat could get a single dose of focused treatment and only need one time under anesthesia, as opposed to 18-22 radiation doses with anesthesia for each treatment.
VCA has invested in really top-of-the-line technology for radiation. I think they deserve some props for that capital investment. We’re able to be leaders that way.

We had the right equipment and team for that cat. Seven months later, her heart is stable and her diabetes has leveled out.
When I was at UC Davis, I trained a lot of residents and students. One of the nice things about that is now that I’m practicing, people still know I come from academia. I’ve had some students come through our VCA hospital and I’m going to have a resident do continuing education with us in radiation.

I think every veterinarian is an educator.
Sometimes we’re educating through a referral process, but most days we’re educators to our clients. We sometimes forget we’re all educators.
At VCA, there are more than just one or two veterinarians for each specialty. There are probably 12 of us radiation oncologists in the VCA network. We take monthly calls and nerd out about our technology, software and tumor types and how different people treat them.
Thanks to technology and network at VCA, I’m getting to talk to more veterinary radiation oncologists now than I did in academia. I really enjoy hearing from other people and I love knowing there’s a team of radiation oncologists.

There are less than 200 veterinary radiation oncologists in the world.
If you think you want to go into veterinary radiation, it’s a great idea to spend some time with a radiation facility. There are more opportunities than ever to find someone close to you. Spend some time with a veterinary radiation oncologist to see what their day-to-day is like. Also spend some time with a medical oncologist so you have perspective on what veterinary medicine is like.

And don’t be afraid of the physics.
Physics wasn’t my favorite subject in undergrad, but it didn’t prevent me from applying. Don’t be shy. There are so many practical and great things about it.