Dr. Steven and Linda Joseph 

Dear Dr. Joseph, 

I recently received the Dr. Steven Joseph Compassionate Animal Care Award at the completion of my fourth year. I wanted to tell you how grateful and honored I feel to have received this award and how thankful I am for your continued support of students. This award is very meaningful to me because all throughout my fourth year and career thus far I have tried to extend compassion to all of my patients. I think that being compassionate and caring for both your patient as well as the owner is one of the most crucial parts of veterinary medicine. Sometimes this profession can become difficult because not all of our patients have a happy outcome but we must never lose our compassion. I completed both my undergraduate as well as veterinary degree here at K-State (go cats!). I loved finishing vet school at K-State because we received such a well-rounded education and the clinicians teach you so much. At the end of my clinical year, I will be heading to Colorado to a small animal practice where I will be practicing mostly emergency medicine with some general practice as well. I am very excited for this new change and to begin my career. I am very passionate about emergency because you are able to see such a wide variety of cases and you can do so much to help your patients, it also provides challenges and allows you to grow your knowledge. One day I hope to join a mixed animal practice. There are so many different avenues in veterinary medicine and I am so excited to see where my career will take me. Thank you so much again for your support of us as students and this award, it is truly an honor to have received this. 

Sincerely, 

Kristin Helmer