AVC large animal surgeon featured on docu-reality show
Dr. Aimie Doyle (Class of 2000), a large animal surgical specialist at AVC, is featured on the National Geographic Wild docu-reality show, Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet, when it opens for its third season on March 19.
Because there is no surgical expertise for large animals in the North, Dr. Doyle provides her expertise to Dr. Michelle Oakley, star of the show and Dr. Doyle’s classmate at AVC. In the March 19 show, Drs Doyle and Oakley work together to determine the cause of serious lameness in a horse.
In May 2015, Dr. Doyle took students Bethany Holliday, Nancy Brochu, and Shauna MacLeod, AVC Class of 2016, to work with Dr. Oakley on a captive wildlife rotation where they gained experience with a variety of captive wild animals—from reindeer to porcupines. The students will appear in an upcoming episode of the show.
Dr. Doyle will return to the Yukon in May 2016 to work with Dr. Oakley on the fourth season of the show.
Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet premiered on April 14, 2014, on National Geographic’s subsidiary channel Nat Geo WILD. One of only a few veterinarians in the Yukon, Dr. Oakley is followed by a film crew as she travels hundreds of kilometres across harsh terrain to make house calls to help many species of animals, ranging from an angry musk ox and a caribou with a tumor to a defensive lynx and a grey owl with an amputated wing. In her case, “house” may range from a remote homestead to a frozen prairie in the dead of winter.
Dr. Oakley lives in the village of Haines Junction, Yukon, with her husband and three daughters. She runs a clinic out of her home and offers weekly clinics in satellite facilities in Whitehorse, Yukon, 154 km from her home and in Haines, Alaska, 238 km from where she lives. She is the on-call veterinarian for the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, a huge enclosure that contains many animals native to the Yukon as well as a large wildlife rehabilitation facility.
She has been involved in numerous research programs for First Nations organizations and for the Canadian government. In addition to her veterinary role, she is recognized as a regional biologist in the Yukon. She is an associate professor at the University of Calgary’s College of Veterinary Medicine and regularly works at the Calgary zoo in this capacity.
Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet can be viewed at http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/dr-oakley-yukon-vet/.
