Kate Mueller, DVM '15, grew up in Rochester, New York and has been enamored with marine mammals for as long as she can remember – even though she grew up by a lake instead of by the ocean. She received her undergraduate degree in English and political science from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and spent a year teaching middle school math after graduating from college. “I didn’t take a direct path to aquatic animal medicine or even veterinary medicine,” Dr. Mueller said. “Teaching was an incredibly valuable experience, and while I realized that it was not my ultimate calling, I still immensely enjoy the teaching and mentoring aspects of my veterinary career.”

Following her year of teaching, Mueller began working as a technician assistant at a general practice cat clinic in Brooklyn, New York while concurrently volunteering in the New York Aquarium’s marine animal husbandry department. This was when she decided to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. “I had a vague dream at that point of a career in marine wildlife medicine, but at the time, even getting into vet school seemed like a pretty tall order, so I wasn’t laser-focused on that,” she explained.

Mueller went on to complete two years of post-baccalaureate coursework at SUNY Stony Brook in preparation for applying to veterinary school, which also gave her the opportunity to continue working with marine life. “While I lived on Long Island, I volunteered at the Riverhead Foundation, an organization that rescued and rehabilitated ill and injured seals and cold-stunned sea turtles. It has since been reorganized as the New York Marine Rescue Center. I loved this work and it showed me one could combine veterinary medicine, conservation, and working directly with wildlife.”

Mueller was also exposed to the financial realities of working in conservation, noting that many organizations rely on grant funding and donations to continue their work. “I gained an understanding of how precariously funded these types of organizations can be, and how rare it is to be able to financially support a career in wildlife medicine because of that,” she said.

During her time at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, Mueller continued gaining experience with terrestrial wildlife and aquatic species, including working at the Janet L. Swanson Wildlife Hospital to learn the principles of wildlife medicine and rehabilitation. She also completed the AQUAVET I course and a six-week externship at the New England Aquarium during her fourth year of veterinary school. “I didn’t necessarily plan on a career in wildlife medicine – I took to heart all the warnings about how hard the field is to break into, how few jobs there are, how there is no money in it. I was plenty fascinated by domestic animal medicine, both large and small, and felt flexible about where my career path would take me,” she explained.

“The best advice I can offer to veterinary students, based on my personal experience, is to be flexible and open to any opportunity that comes along, even if it doesn’t seem directly related to what you envision as your path.”

Mueller also empathizes with veterinary students and the stresses they often experience, and now of course sees the benefit of persevering through – and making the most of – Cornell’s rigorous curriculum. “Even though it often felt like torture at the time, looking back, I think that the problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum prepared me very well for an unconventional career in veterinary medicine,” Mueller reflected. “PBL teaches you not to get too hung up on the details, but instead to train your brain how to think about problems in a way that can be applied equally well to small animal emergency medicine and dolphin field medicine.”

Following her graduation from veterinary school, Mueller moved to Massachusetts and completed a small animal rotating internship at VCA South Shore, a large emergency and referral hospital. “Upon finishing my internship, I felt more comfortable with emergency medicine than general practice, and there were lots of jobs on offer, so I ended up staying in ER medicine for the next five years, first at Angell West in Waltham, MA (2016-2019) and then back at VCA South Shore (2019-2021). Although I never would have wanted to stay in ER forever, I’m grateful for those years because of how much I learned, the wonderful people that I worked with, and the fact that no situation in wildlife medicine, no matter how unusual, can really stress me out compared to that.”

While working in emergency medicine, Mueller began volunteering at the National Marine Life Center, an organization in southeast Massachusetts that rehabilitates seals and sea turtles. “I continued doing that, as my schedule allowed, for the next five years. Even though it was a small part of my life time-wise, it provided a much needed continued connection to the world of wildlife medicine and marine creatures,” she said.

In 2021, Mueller joined the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Marine Mammal Rescue team as a part-time veterinarian. “In that role, I help respond to stranded marine mammals (primarily dolphins) on Cape Cod. The dolphins are treated in our Mobile Dolphin Rescue Clinic (Moby for short) with IV fluids and vitamin E/selenium and quickly transported from the site of stranding to a release site, with access to deeper offshore water. At IFAW, we also respond to stranded seals, including entanglement cases, and perform necropsies on whales that strand on Cape Cod.”

Mueller continues to work in the field of marine mammal medicine while keeping ties to the small animal world. “Currently, I have a bit of an unconventional patchwork of roles that I fill. I am still a contract (part-time) vet with IFAW’s Marine Mammal Rescue team. I continue to volunteer at the National Marine Life Center, providing veterinary support for seal rehabilitation year-round, as well as cold-stunned sea turtle triage, stabilization, and rehabilitation each fall. I also keep a toe in the companion animal medicine world through per diem work, mostly in urgent care.” Mueller’s career path shows that there is no one route to a career in wildlife medicine. Learning how to practice high quality small animal medicine only adds to one’s strengths as a clinician.

“The best advice I can offer to veterinary students, based on my personal experience, is to be flexible and open to any opportunity that comes along, even if it doesn’t seem directly related to what you envision as your path,” Mueller said.

“There are several reasons for that: one, you might be surprised by an experience and change your idea of what your goals actually are. Two, you can almost always find something in any experience that is valuable to take away and apply to future endeavors. I feel that, almost 20 years later, I am still applying lessons I learned as a new college graduate teaching math to 13-year-olds. And three, and probably most importantly, veterinary medicine, and wildlife health/aquatic medicine even more so, is a small world and all connections you make are valuable. I am an introvert and networking does not come at all naturally to me, but by taking advantage of opportunities that were outside my comfort zone or seemingly tangential to my ultimate goals, I’ve made so many unexpected and valuable connections that have shaped my path and continue to do so.”

Written by Victoria Priester, DVM '26