In the autumn of 2013, I accepted the position of Medical Director at an animal shelter in northern New Mexico. Since my earliest days as a veterinarian, I desired the opportunity to help stray and abused animals, and I approached this position with excitement and the very best of intentions.
What follows is my version of a nightmare that no professional, in fact no human being, should ever have suffered.
This particular area of New Mexico is apparently known for its generational nepotism, unemployment, drug use, and violence. In fact, I'm also told that people there have had their homes and businesses burnt to the ground if they found themselves deemed undesirable by the locals. The shelter itself had a long and troubled history, including ugly local politics, staffing issues, poor leadership, and chronic financial woes. None of this was known to me at the time. I simply went to help the animals who would otherwise not be cared for and to make a difference in the organization and the community.
I saw up to 30 medical and surgical patients a day with absolutely no skilled veterinary help until the last few months. Furthermore, I successfully started an in-house spay neuter program, instituted much needed protocols, and successfully contained a shelter-wide ringworm outbreak. I was also responsible for inventory and ordering, staff training, and all logs and records.
Not long there, however, it quickly came to my attention that there existed an intense, malignant internal rift in the organization, which appeared to be centered around a specific group of disgruntled employees and volunteers. They were obviously united by a common intense resentment toward the shelter’s new Executive Director, to whom I was loyal, as she to me represented a real possibility for positive change. Of course, they didn’t see it that way.
Things came to a head when this rogue group were fired from their positions for chronic belligerence and defiance of the new administration, of which I was associated. Immediately thereafter a political war was unleashed against the shelter in the community. The ASPCA in New York was contacted with numerous complaints, as they had provided a grant which covered my salary. Other animal protection organizations were contacted alleging abuse and neglect though none was found upon inspection by local animal control. Local media and politicians were contacted en masse with all manner of allegations against the shelter and me. One town commissioner even said that he never felt so threatened by the public. Bowing to the intense pressure, town officials then stated publicly that they had contacted the veterinary board asking them to get to the bottom of things and that all future contract negotiations between the town and the shelter would be based upon my guilt or innocence.
Then late one night, and right in the midst of all of this, the Executive Director’s car was burned to the ground in the shelter parking lot, endangering the lives of all of the animals in the shelter (see right). I
was told that this criminal act was officially deemed by the police and the fire department to be malicious arson. And shortly thereafter, the NM veterinary board received over one hundred pages of the most
lurid, heinous accusations against me, covering the first four months
of my time there. I was devastated.
It must be kept in mind, however, that my staunch supporters throughout all of this included the shelter board, the shelter Executive Director, the shelter Manager, the shelter Office Manager, the shelter Adoptions Counselor, my Veterinary Assistant, and several other shelter animal caretakers, all of whom I worked with closely on a daily basis. They accepted neither the unsubstantiated allegations against me nor the eventual outcome of this tragic mess.
Never-the-less, I was never provided with any form of investigation to look into the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this matter, as would have normally occurred, especially in situations as conspicuous as this. At the hearing itself, hearsay, distortion, outright fabrication, and endless "he said she said" nonsense were simply taken as "Findings of Fact". And these were so deeply nested that it was virtually impossible to successfully untangle them.
So, in the end, mob rule and local politics held sway, as they often will. The outcome was inevitable. And absurd.
One given attorney had this to say, "In my 42 years of practice, I cannot recollect having reviewed a more unfair and egregious action by a state agency. It is an extraordinarily confusing Adjudication; repeatedly based upon hearsay and double-hearsay; replete with Findings that make absolutely no logical or clinical sense."
And one previous member of the NM Board of Veterinary Medicine later summed it up to me by saying, "Gene, I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can do, let me know. This makes me ashamed of our entire profession."
Once this travesty had concluded, I resigned from my position at the shelter. And in rapid succession, I’m told, the shelter Executive Director, Manager, and others loyal to us felt compelled to leave as well.
In short, we were all triumphantly repelled by any and all means necessary. Mission accomplished.
What follows is my version of a nightmare that no professional, in fact no human being, should ever have suffered.
This particular area of New Mexico is apparently known for its generational nepotism, unemployment, drug use, and violence. In fact, I'm also told that people there have had their homes and businesses burnt to the ground if they found themselves deemed undesirable by the locals. The shelter itself had a long and troubled history, including ugly local politics, staffing issues, poor leadership, and chronic financial woes. None of this was known to me at the time. I simply went to help the animals who would otherwise not be cared for and to make a difference in the organization and the community.
I saw up to 30 medical and surgical patients a day with absolutely no skilled veterinary help until the last few months. Furthermore, I successfully started an in-house spay neuter program, instituted much needed protocols, and successfully contained a shelter-wide ringworm outbreak. I was also responsible for inventory and ordering, staff training, and all logs and records.
Not long there, however, it quickly came to my attention that there existed an intense, malignant internal rift in the organization, which appeared to be centered around a specific group of disgruntled employees and volunteers. They were obviously united by a common intense resentment toward the shelter’s new Executive Director, to whom I was loyal, as she to me represented a real possibility for positive change. Of course, they didn’t see it that way.
Things came to a head when this rogue group were fired from their positions for chronic belligerence and defiance of the new administration, of which I was associated. Immediately thereafter a political war was unleashed against the shelter in the community. The ASPCA in New York was contacted with numerous complaints, as they had provided a grant which covered my salary. Other animal protection organizations were contacted alleging abuse and neglect though none was found upon inspection by local animal control. Local media and politicians were contacted en masse with all manner of allegations against the shelter and me. One town commissioner even said that he never felt so threatened by the public. Bowing to the intense pressure, town officials then stated publicly that they had contacted the veterinary board asking them to get to the bottom of things and that all future contract negotiations between the town and the shelter would be based upon my guilt or innocence.
Then late one night, and right in the midst of all of this, the Executive Director’s car was burned to the ground in the shelter parking lot, endangering the lives of all of the animals in the shelter (see right). I
was told that this criminal act was officially deemed by the police and the fire department to be malicious arson. And shortly thereafter, the NM veterinary board received over one hundred pages of the most
lurid, heinous accusations against me, covering the first four months
of my time there. I was devastated.
It must be kept in mind, however, that my staunch supporters throughout all of this included the shelter board, the shelter Executive Director, the shelter Manager, the shelter Office Manager, the shelter Adoptions Counselor, my Veterinary Assistant, and several other shelter animal caretakers, all of whom I worked with closely on a daily basis. They accepted neither the unsubstantiated allegations against me nor the eventual outcome of this tragic mess.
Never-the-less, I was never provided with any form of investigation to look into the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this matter, as would have normally occurred, especially in situations as conspicuous as this. At the hearing itself, hearsay, distortion, outright fabrication, and endless "he said she said" nonsense were simply taken as "Findings of Fact". And these were so deeply nested that it was virtually impossible to successfully untangle them.
So, in the end, mob rule and local politics held sway, as they often will. The outcome was inevitable. And absurd.
One given attorney had this to say, "In my 42 years of practice, I cannot recollect having reviewed a more unfair and egregious action by a state agency. It is an extraordinarily confusing Adjudication; repeatedly based upon hearsay and double-hearsay; replete with Findings that make absolutely no logical or clinical sense."
And one previous member of the NM Board of Veterinary Medicine later summed it up to me by saying, "Gene, I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can do, let me know. This makes me ashamed of our entire profession."
Once this travesty had concluded, I resigned from my position at the shelter. And in rapid succession, I’m told, the shelter Executive Director, Manager, and others loyal to us felt compelled to leave as well.
In short, we were all triumphantly repelled by any and all means necessary. Mission accomplished.
© 2020-2023 Eugene Aversa, DVM