Each year during National Veterinary Technician Week, certified veterinary technicians at UW Veterinary Care select two of their own to receive awards for their service. This year’s winners are Rubi Hayim and Mandy Henderson. (Photo: Ashley Voss)
October 11 – 17 was National Veterinary Technician Week, a time when the veterinary medical community formally recognizes the vital contributions that technicians make to animal health and welfare. Veterinary medical clinics could not function properly without skilled, compassionate, certified veterinary technicians, and UW Veterinary Care (UWVC) is fortunate to have them in abundance.
Each year at this time, these fantastic technicians select two of their own to be recognized for commitment to the profession and for service to patients, clients, students, and clinicians. Mandy Henderson was selected to receive the “Legends” award, which is given to a technician who has worked at UWVC for five or more years, and the “Early Career” award, given to a technician who has worked at UWVC for less than five years, went to Rubi Hayim.
“Primary Care loves Rubi for all his help on busy days and Mandy for being able to field all of our emergencies when we are swamped,” says Sandi Sawchuk, a clinical instructor at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine and UWVC primary care veterinarian. “These two are always smiling, even under stress.”
Read on to learn more about this year’s winners.
Mandy Henderson
Henderson joined UWVC in 2009, and she works in the Small Animal Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Service. For her, a career that involved working with animals was an inevitability.
Sandi Sawchuk
“I’ve always been naturally drawn to animals,” says Henderson. “It’s in my blood, I think.”
She had pocket pets as a child, and the family also owned a horse and surly dog, but she began to gather her own menagerie on the day she moved out. Now she and her family spend much of their time caring for 18 animals—horses, goats, dogs, and cats—on their farm in Albany, Wis.
“It’s a lot of work, but it doesn’t feel like work to me,” says Henderson. “I don’t know what I would do with my time if I weren’t caring for animals.”
Henderson earned her veterinary technician degree at Madison College, and she’s now working toward specialty certification in critical care.
Rubi Hayim
Hayim took a somewhat circuitous path to his current career. In his native Turkey, his father owns a poultry business, so his original plan was to work there after earning his agricultural engineering degree. Instead, he met his wife, a Wisconsinite who was teaching in Turkey as part of her work with a non-profit organization, and they ended up moving to Brooklyn, N.Y.
“When I came to the United States, I knew I wanted to work with small animals rather than large animals, and I wanted the work to be very hands on,” says Hayim. “I thought that becoming a veterinary technician would give me the best chance to do that.”
He decided to pursue his veterinary technician degree at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, N.Y. After graduation, he worked at a nearby clinic for a year, and then he and his wife moved to Wisconsin.
Hayim joined UWVC in April 2013, getting his start with the critical care unit. Now he spends most of his time with the Dermatology Service, but he also works in oncology and primary care. He plans to pursue a specialty certification, possibly in dermatology, in the near future.
Nik Hawkins