Dr. Kirpensteijn: And what I love about oncology is you never know what you get. You have to be agile. You have to be able to respond to complete different situations and then you have to take risks. And I think that that's what I like. I like to have an open mindset for anything you do in oncology, because it is never the way that you think.
Dr. Venable: Welcome to the Veterinary Cancer Pioneers Podcast, the show where we delve into the groundbreaking work of veterinary professionals who are dedicated to advancing the field of veterinary oncology. I'm your host, Dr. Rachel Venable, and I'm thrilled to embark on this journey with you.
Dr. Venable: I'm your host, Dr. Rachel Venable, and I am so excited today to introduce our guest, Dr. Jolle Kirpensteijn. He is a veterinary surgeon and he has had many roles in the profession. He is currently the Chief Veterinary Officer at Hill's Pet Nutrition. He actually graduated from vet school at Utrecht and he was teaching at the university there for several years as well as in Copenhagen. He's published over 120 articles, very impressed and 250 lectures. But he also does a lot of professional social media. He actually has two podcasts that he's involved with, and he's won multiple awards. And actually, multiple people have mentioned him on this podcast as being a guest. So I'm quite excited to have him here today. Dr. Jolle, thank you so much for coming.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Thank you for having me. And that's quite a bar that I have to achieve now. So but I appreciate it. Thank you. It's it's great to be on the podcast. Yeah, I'm ready. I have to say, you pronounce my name perfectly. So well done there.
Dr. Venable: Thank you. Names are not my forte. You can ask my technicians. I make them laugh quite a bit, so. But I practice yours, so. Thank you. So, you know, I always like to start kind of at the beginning. You know what got you into veterinary medicine. But then especially, you know, surgical oncology. That's very niche. So how did you get there?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: All right. It's quite a long story, but as a matter of fact, I wanted always to be a fighter pilot. In Holland, you have to kind of choose your topics before you go to what we call middle school. So as a young kid, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. So I chose all my topics to become a fighter pilot. And then I found out that those topics do not correlate really with the profession that I chose. After I kind of dumped the fighter pilot idea a year before, I thought, “Hey, maybe I should be a veterinarian.” And the reason that I did that is that through a friend of my father's, I had a whole summer that I was with a practicing veterinarian in the city that I lived, and he was kind of a James Herriot, you know, he did everything he did cows and horses who ran in the fields and was the only small animal practitioner in our village or our region. So he showed everything, and I loved it. It was so much fun. We had a really good time. He was also a really nice guy, which I think veterinarians are in general really nice guy. He really stimulated to rethink my fighter pilot idea a little bit. And so I did. And so I applied for veterinary school. And then I found out that, you know, most of the topics that fighter pilots need, we don't. And so, for one thing, I didn't have biology in, and I think that's quite essential. I had a little bit of catching up to do.
And then while I did my vet school. That's cool. And hold to six years a little different than in the US. it's six years or six and a half, as a matter of fact. So we have a little bit of prefab in there. Our secondary school is a little longer, so it's the same time period that you're studying. But, so I was going through my veterinary school and I wanted to be a James Herriot or a, you know, vet that does everything. As a matter of fact, I was really interested in cow and horse medicine, but I had never ridden a horse before I started veterinary medicine, and I had very little contact with cows, except for my externship that I did with that country for that. So I found also out very quickly that probably that's not my forte. And so then I moved on to do small animals in Holland you have to choose. So after a couple of years you have to choose which direction you go in. And you get most of your education in that direction. And the other parts are a little less illuminated.
So, and then I met a very special person who is a professor in orthopedics, Dr. Frederik Meutsteak. In Holland was also you had to apply for your last one and a half year, and often it's a rotational surface, so you have to wait for your position to open up. That took in my case almost a year. And so I was talking to the professor mostly, and I said, okay, what should I do now? And he said, “You have to go abroad. Absolutely. The only thing that you should do is don't stay in Holland. I mean, you know, everything here. You have to go abroad. You have to be uncomfortable.”
And so I applied for a couple of vet schools in the US to do an external ship in between. So imagine, how long was it? The first five years is only theory. And then in the last one and a half years, you get the practice. So. And a couple of vegetables accepted me as a matter of fact, I got some, you know, some money from, some societies that support students that have these endeavors. And I decided for the University of Georgia because they were the first ones that responded. And they really receive me with open arms. And I did my externship there, and I completely loved it. And that's where I got triggered. And hey, maybe I should do a specialization. And so I ditched the horse thing, I ditched the cow thing, and I said, “Okay, I'm going to do a specialization in small animal.” And I didn't know what the course was. Still open for everything. And so I went to Georgia. I did my internship there, lost everything there, really was convinced there needs to be a surgeon, which probably was not the brightest idea because I was not matched in the program, which was a big frustration.
And then they offered me an ophthalmology residency and they offered me a diagnostic imaging radiation residency at that time. And I would have been the first radiation oncologist and one of the first radiation oncologist in the US. If I would have said yes. But of course I said no. I wanted to be a surgeon, so I applied. After the match, I got matched in Kansas State, did my three years there and loved it. And then I did an externship because that's what it really taught me is to look outside of your borders. I, asked for an externship at Colorado State University, which is, of course, the Mecca of oncology, and I always say there's multiple roads, roads leading to Rome. There's multiple roads in oncology leading to Colorado State, especially to Steve Withrow. I know his name has been mentioned many, many times, but he was at that time the god of oncology. and also a person that really wanted to increase the knowledge in oncology all over the world. So, I did my externship there, loved it.
Then I suddenly wanted to be a surgical oncologist. and then I applied for a fellowship at Colorado State University, and that's where it all started. He is such an inspirational person. The team is so inspirational. That's where I loved the fact that, you know, you don't only get support on the surgical part, but you also get support from a mental partner that's started really early with the Argus Institute there. They're an amazing breeding ground of so many specialties in oncology, but also in all of our specialties. And actually the fact that you're close to the mountains side, you know, I'm a work hard, play hard person. So skiing every weekend. So that was the ideal lifestyle that I had there and I love that. So that's how I came into surgical quality. I know that Julius said something about that. He was there's so many fellow I was number three. So, Rod was the first one, Morro was the second one, and I was the third one. So you have a golden oldie here, and I cannot say how much I owe to Steve Withrow and Rod Straw. who were my two mentors and, and that's where it all started. And I've never looked back.
Dr. Venable: Now, that's an incredible story. I love that. I love how we started at fighter pilot, and then we ended up skiing in Colorado. Like, it's all right. That's great. And that's awesome. You were number three. I mean, it takes a lot to go into something that nobody's really doing. What do you think made you kind of take that leap? Because it really is. I mean, there's other careers that maybe, you know, it's already a little bit more established. Do you like being the first?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Yeah. I think what you're trying to say is, why didn't you do orthopedic surgery and be really rich by now? And yes, I could have done that. But it is interesting that I thought orthopedic surgery was only fun when you had broken bones and you didn't know what was happening. All the stuff that is kind of cookie-cutter is not my style. So we at that time, we still did that, this style force in the old fashioned way, and they did one after the other after the other. And so after ten times, I had seen it and I was done with it and was not interested anymore. So I need to be stimulated constantly. And what I love about oncology is you never know what you get. You have to be agile, you have to be able to respond to completely different situations, and then you have to take risks. And I think that that's what I like. I like things that are new, that are risky, that are different. And so that's why, you know, I if you look at Steve Withrow as a surgeon, he was just amazing. Yes, he could do anything. And he was super fast. And then he left the rest, all the other stuff to you. So it was like you went into the search with him and the whole team. And for us, as we did Lynch for whatever big tumor. And then you saw Steve come in and everything was ready, and then this whole big tumor went out. There was blood, sporting everywhere. And he said, “Oh, now you can close it.” And so it took us like an hour and a half to close that big mess that he made. But he was super fast. And, you know, he could take out any tumor at that time. And I was very impressed by that. And I learned from him that you have to have an open mindset for anything you do in oncology, because it is never the way that you think it is.
You know, we have wonderful diagnostics right now much better than in early times. But even though we have all those diagnostics, there still are surprises all the time. And so you need to be able to adapt to the surprises. That's the part that I like. It brings up the art of surgery much more than doing a or every day, or doing one procedure every day, which is really, really boring. So for me, it really was that stimulation, that being on the edge that brought me into certain quality and that also kept me there for a really, really long time.
Dr. Venable: Yeah, you're right, it is different. It's not cookie-cutter, especially surgery in oncology. You know, I like you said it, it can be so different. And it's so funny. You know, when you talk about Withrow because I got the tail end of him, you know, right when he was retiring and things I can just picture everything you're saying, you know, as a medical oncology resident, it was so funny because he would get the client so excited and so pumped up to do this like, crazy procedure. And then he'd be like, he tapped you. You know, the resident, he tapped you on the shoulder and go, okay, now you go over the complications. It's like, okay, here we go.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: He is a visionary. He still is. Yeah. that's what I think that we should give him the most credit for is he lifted people up to to great heights. if you look at the number of people that he has inspired, that established his legacy, not what he did in surgery, not what he did, even the money that he brought in. But it's the amazing support he gave to all these people that went through those clinics. And, you know, it's probably the biggest oncology clinic right now in the world. That's all thanks to him. So we all need to be very, very thankful.
Dr. Venable: You know that's right for sure. He is definitely a force of nature and did so many amazing things. And yeah, really set up an incredible program. Do you think is that something that maybe got you into academia?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: So as a matter of fact, I think I applied for something in Colorado, didn't get that. And then the University of Utrecht reached out to me and I was talking with Steve about this, and I said, “Steve, what shall I do? Shall I do it or not? Or shall I just stay in the U.S and find a job there?” And he said, “You know what, in the U.S you will make a little wave. In Europe, you may will make a huge wave, because there's nothing there. I mean, and it's really needed. So if I would make a choice, I would go to Europe back and then, you know, strengthen what's there.” And that's exactly what happened. So when I came to Utrecht in the beginning, they were all thinking I was completely crazy. But after a couple of years they found out that in Utrecht, you know, the once again, the universe system is a little different. You have to have a PhD to become a professor. So I did my PhD there, did my master's at Kansas State, PhD in Utrecht. So I've kind of finalized my study time. It was a long time to become accredited with the PhD and that sort of things, but it was all good. And then I could start build up this oncology service in Utrecht, which we did.
We had wonderful medical oncologist there, but there was no surgical oncologist. And so it was in Utrecht, it was very much you have isolated departments that didn't really work together. And the one thing in oncology is, and I think Julius spoke about that too, is that you have to work with others. You cannot do it alone, as surgical quality is worthless if you don't have a medical oncologist, radiation oncologist, or psychosocial oncologist. You know, you need all those people to be successful. I think that's something that I brought in, that I got all those people together and started a really nice oncology service there, and they're still doing really great.
So I think Utrecht is regarded as a very good research institution and, I love my time there. I love the fact that I love academics. It's really good I know a lot of people will go to private practice immediately. I had the best time in academics because you have the freedom to do whatever you want. And I was really interested in osteosarcoma at that time. So I did a lot of basic research in osteosarcoma, and I loved it. And the relationship with human osteosarcoma experts. And, that was just mind-boggling to see how much potential we have to help them in their research. You know, human research grows very rare, can also become a very common. There are similarities, but also really big differences. And so I had a really good relationship with Leiden University. And it was really a bone pathology center there that just focused on osteosarcoma. Professor Hogendoorn, which is a human pathologist, was at that time the leader of the European Bone Bank, which was a huge organization for bone tumor. So I learned so much from him too. So that's the other thing that in a university setting, you have so many people around. So you learn from the students, you learn from your colleagues, you learn from people that you work with. And so I really enjoyed my university time.
Dr. Venable: Yeah. And Utrecht definitely has a very strong name in oncology. I've certainly read a lot of papers from there. And what would you say, you know, since you've been on both sides of Europe and the U.S., do you feel like it's a lot of similarities? Do you think in some ways that it's a little bit different? Is it maybe, you know, is it something where they were similar? Now it's not I haven't been over there. So what are your thoughts.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Yeah. Tumors are the same everywhere. So that's not different. Yeah, I think the behaviors might be a little different. I think all the trips are there. Obviously, the US is a very rich country and you have a lot of options. If you go to the rest of the world, those options diminish. We can talk a little bit about the WSAVA path, but one of the things that I wanted to do was kind of increase knowledge all over the world because, you know, there's very few places outside of the US that have an MRI and a CT and a PET scan and all those things. So a lot of the countries don't have those things. So that is probably oncology of 20 years ago from what happened in the US. But people are catching up really fast. I think in Holland we have all the tools now too. But there are areas in Africa, Asia that they don't. They're still struggling with oncology.
The biggest difference is probably the attitudes of people towards euthanasia. That's a huge difference, especially in Holland. Euthanasia is allowed in humans in certain cases. It's definitely very much accepted in pets. So people will weigh the question of if you're doing something that is right for the animal or if you're doing something that's right for the owner, and so they will weigh that much more. So a lot of the patients that had tumors that were on the edge, they're probably more euthanized because they felt that that's a humane way of doing it, because it's so accepted. This is not the same all over Europe. Europe is a is a smorgasbord of countries and different ideas. But the northern part of Europe is pretty much okay with that. I think that people sometimes are a little bit more rational, and we'll say at a certain point this is enough and they will really clearly let you know when that point is there. And although you might want to do a lot of stuff, they might not. So I think the client plays a really big role in those decisions.
So the other thing that was really different, I wanted to bring in amputations were not very much accepted when I came back, and that really changed in my time. But then there was a big hesitation for limb spares. People really didn't want to do a major limb spare surgery on a patient, and now we know that the limb spares probably only work for distal radius. And even then you have a lot of complications. So a lot of people would have chosen for either euthanasia or amputation, which is completely different from where I came from, because everything that came in that had a distal radius just got the limb spare, there was no real option for radiation side.
So I think people look at things a little differently, but the tumors are the same, the backgrounds are the same, keep more of the same, the therapy is the same, all those things are the same. And you still have to have that flexibility as an oncologist surgeon to deal with the tools that you have and to do the best for the animal. And we always joke about maximally invasive surgery. I was kind of expert on minimally invasive surgery in Utrecht, and I really honed those skills over the time that I was there. At the end of my career in practice, I did almost every surgery minimally invasive. So I really moved from taking out the really big tumors to big incisions through minimizing the incision. So we can kind of guarantee the quality of life was really good for patients recovering.
Dr. Venable: Yeah. Minimally invasive. I always find that pretty fascinating. And what we're able to do anymore is that kind of one of the areas that you think surgery is really evolving and kind of an exciting area?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Yeah, I would say minimal invasive and robotics are the ones where we have most space to grow minimally invasive. I mean, if it's established right now, when I started, there was nothing I learned from my friend, one of my colleagues there who learned it from a human surgeon. And so we started spaying, and I remember that my first laparoscopic spay took 2.5 hours. It was awful. And I was sweating bullets during that time. And then that went from 2.5 hours to about two minutes per ovary. So, you know, there's a major learning curve in minimally invasive surgery. But for the right cases, it's amazing. Certain chest procedures. I think it is a big mistake if you do that by maximally invasive surgery compared to minimally invasive because some things you can do to a small hole and the dogs recover so quickly, that's the way to go.
So there is a balance between the two. Because if you have an esplanic tumor, that is three kilos or 6 pounds, you're not going to do minimally invasive. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. But I do have adrenal tumors. I didn't I mean, we had a huge endocrine department there. So I saw an adrenal tumor every week. And most of these were treated by minimally invasive surgery at the time that I left. So and then you started with the really small ones, which were less than two centimeters. But at the end, we were doing the seven or eight centimeters, as long as they didn't have a major invasion in the vena cava. but, you know, that's how you grow. And so we were dabbling a little bit with robotic surgery. It's of course, really expensive. But I think that's where the future of human surgery is right now. And we are not there yet as veterinarians. And so, I mean, some people are trying it a little bit because, you know, like I said, it's really expensive, but that's where everything is going at a certain point.
Dr. Venable: Yeah. I wonder how much we'll get into robotics. I've always thought that it is quite fascinating. You know, some of the things you hear about with people have the surgeons, not really even in the same room. Right? Yeah.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: I want to be in Hawaii on the beach with my little thingies and, goggles and I just do any surgery for you? Yeah, that would be ideal. Although that's, you know, of course, a little exaggerated. Most under sitting right next to the patient with them. But they can also sit in the other room. But you know, we know that your control of your instruments is so much better with robotics. It's just the robot is not really good when it messes up. That's the problem. If something are really badly wrong, which often happens in oncology, then you might have an issue. So things that are where you have a stepwise approach. Does robotics work really well? I think with the crazy tumors that we sometimes get, it's still hands on.
Dr. Venable: And that makes sense. I'm impressed with how many adrenal tumors that you removed. I feel like that's still an area where people kind of debate back and forth of, do we remove this or not? So I'm impressed that you were doing so many and minimally invasive.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: But that's when you have a good endocrinology department. That's what happens because, you know, you need to think Holland is a small country, but we were pulling from 30 million people. So it's quite a lot of people, quite a lot of dogs. And these tumors are pretty common, especially when they come all over from Europe. You know, I could not have done it without that department. I mean, we had some internal medicine people that were completely amazing and they worked up all the animals. So I just had to do the little procedure, once again, that's working together. I was just one little rabbit in a big organization, and it worked out really, really well. I just have to say that those dogs recovered so much better. When you have three little holes in the side, then you have a big opening because they're all really fat. It's in the deep. People love the ventral approach, which I never understood because we always do them sternally. It's much easier. Yeah, I mean, you have these dogs that are already not doing very well. You give them a major surgery, a major incision. It takes them days to weeks to recover. When you do the minimally invasive, they're going home after half an hour. It's just unbelievable. And you don't get complications because the incisions are like one of ten millimeters wide.
Dr. Venable: You know, that's fascinating. I would love to see one of those. I haven't seen that. That's really cool.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: And you know what the other thing is? It made surgery fun again. So we all go through phases that we really like what we're doing. But after you have done ten years, 15 years of something to say, you know, you have seen everything. Endoscopic surgery opened my eyes in a completely different way. Even the space where fun again, you know, doing an endoscopic space, an amazing it's so much fun to do. It never gets boring because it is. It's like gamified surgery. It's wonderful. And so for me it was this stimulation. After I had a little dip and I was like, okay, do I want to go further with surgery? Because I've kind of done everything already. This was a new stimulant that came in and I enjoyed it tremendously. And that's one of the parts that I miss because, you know, I was at the brink of in the surgery. Now everything is quite accepted. When I go to conferences, I'm eager to say, oh my gosh, this is such a good idea. We should change this a little bit and then, you know, it would even be better. Of course, I'm not doing that anymore, but my brain is stimulated by things that have a possibility. And I think and the surgery is definitely something that is still growing and really cool.
Dr. Venable: Yeah. And as you mentioned, like you get, you know, kind of you do something so many times you get a little tired. So is that how you ended up in industry? How can you walk us through?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: This is a question I get very often asked. I have a five-year period that I review my life, especially my work life. So every five years I sit down with myself and say, hey, do you still like what you're doing? What should change to make what you're doing better? Or should you change what you're doing? And that's a question that is really, really important to me. And you don't have to do it every five years. You can do that for ten years or every year. How much longer do you want?
You know, I just want to refer to a book that I read about a year ago, which is called 4,000 weeks. We only have 4,000 weeks in our lives. If you spend those 4,000 weeks, or even if you spend 10% of those weeks not being happy, that's not worth it because you will never get those weeks back. Those 4,000 weeks. The clock starts as soon as you're being pushed out and it stops at the end of however many weeks you have. So knowing that your life is finite and knowing that you have to do something with your life also tells you you have to enjoy your life so you know you can set all sorts of goals. But if the goals are in attainable, you waste a lot of time of your 4,000 weeks to get those goals. So for me, it was like, okay, I really want to do this in five years. If that doesn't work out, then I would probably say, okay, let's take a step back and say, is this still what you want to do? And, you know, that was kind of what I was in, at the university. Universities are wonderful. The only negative part is the politics and the lack of money. So those two things really ignored you all the time. But you're really busy because you have clinics, you have research, and then you have education and you're pulled apart.
You know, I always think about the four horses that pull people apart in the Middle Ages. That's the feeling that you have at university very often. I was at the stage that I had to go into university politics because of, as a full professor or, maybe department head. And I was thinking to myself at my five-year point, is that what I want? Will that give me pleasure to spend the rest of my 4,000 weeks in? And I was like, I don't think so. I know for two reasons. One, because I felt I was not, you know, I had a little bit of imposter syndrome. I'm not a manager. So, you know, I manage students and I manage faculty and that sort of things, but I'm not really an academic manager. And then I thought, I hate academic politics, so why am I doing this there? So at that same time, a friend reached out to me and said, hey, I have an opportunity with you with Hills. And at first, I was laughing at her. I said, you know, I have no connection with nutrition. You know, I'm probably one of those people that you're trying to convince to talk more about nutrition. And I don't, because I'm a surgeon. And she said, just calm down and talk with our CEO and and visit Kansas, see what you like. And I was with these people and they were just amazing. And they were just giving me the right clues about the training that they do. If you want to become a manager, you know, and the things that you need to have, the tools that you need to have a you toolkit to become somebody that will manage.
Well, I was thinking, you know, if I do it for a couple of years, then I can always go back to academic and be a much better manager than I'm not right now, because I will just do the thing that I used to do before in a bigger scale. And so I decided to go for it because a big 180, nobody expected it. I think I pissed off my ex-Dean a lot because he was very surprised that who made the decision. But the thing with me is I have this five-year thing, and if I'm not happy in those five years, this can happen. And people said, no, we pretty well know there's still so 180-degree turn. And I have to tell you, I have never looked back. I miss surgery and miss students and miss my research. I had a wonderful time in Utrecht and I love my colleagues there, but this job that I have now is just incredible, and I've learned so much and I'm still learning things and I'm still changing things. And what is nice in corporate America is that if you're willing to work and work hard, there's endless possibilities. The possibilities don't stop. You just keep on going, which is person like me needs. I need that change, that agility. And so that's what they're giving. And I think I have the best job in the world. I love it.
So I'm still giving back to the veterinary community by educating. You know, I found out that I was wrong. I was wrong about nutrition. And me not wanting to hear anything about it because it does help your patients. And even as a surgeon, you need to think about it, and you need to stimulate people to feed the right nutrition. And because it's so important for patients to recover, coming back to that holistic binary medicine thing where you as an ecological surgeon have only a part, but there's so many other parts that make a surgery successful. And nutrition is a very important part for it, because if they don't eat, they die. And that's how simple it is. And if you don't stimulate them to eat, then you know your surgeries are not going to be successful.
So coming back full circle, you know, for me it has been the best decision. I don't know if it's a decision for everybody. I think a lot of people say, “I will never go to industry,” which is a mistake because you need to be open to any opportunity to get in front of you, and then you need to weigh the decision. It's the same what I do every five years. I have two options, or maybe have three options, and I weigh each option and say, okay, which option is the best for me, myself, my family, my environment, etc. and do the pros and cons. And if the pros, overweight or cons, I probably should do it. You know, you probably should not say, maybe I should wait a year or because we are all procrastinators deep in our hearts and we're afraid for change. You shouldn't be afraid of change. You should embrace change. That's what you need to do. And then you'll be much happier. And you know, at the end of your 4000 weeks, you can say and look back. I said, oh my God, I had the best 4,000 weeks ever.
I cannot be luckier than I am right now. So I'm an optimist. I wake up every morning, I said, “Wow, I'm so lucky to wake up.” Have you ever thought about the fact that you go to bed and you never know for sure? You will wake up, you let go. You know, you let go completely to a stranger being or something, but you're out. What is the risk that you won't come back? You mean you can worry about it a lot, but every day I wake up and I'm like, “Wow, I woke up, the sun is shining. I have a good day. This is going to be a good day.” So, you know, that optimism that allows us to change things that has really driven my life. And you know okay. There's times that I don't enjoy it, but the times that I do enjoy things differently are much more often than the ones that I don't.
Dr. Venable: Well, I love all that. That is fantastic. Maybe. Do you do motivational speaking? Maybe you should start looking into that. But that was perfect. I never realized 4,000 weeks. I mean, I guess I'm just never done the math there.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Anybody that listens to this, this is a book that needs to be on the top of your book list. It is wonderful. Especially the audiobook is even better. The guy is amazing. And yeah, it's because I'm not that young. It took me a long time to find that book and find that thought process. I think he was a guy that used to really hammer down the fact that you have to have, lists and you have to prioritize, you have to do this, and you have to do that. And this book really tells you you probably shouldn't. Why are you prioritizing things that you will never reach? That's kind of the question that he asks at the end. And then it goes back to the 4,000 weeks. You know, it's just a you need to live your life in those 4,000 weeks. I need to be able to go back. So that's that's what I do. And yes, maybe motivational speaker. I don't have any time left. I'm doing way too many things. We always talk about things that you're really good in and things that you might not be so good in. I tend to stack a lot of things, and so I learned in the time to say, okay, maybe I should do that a later time, but not now. I have had my successes, and I also know what my faults are, and doing too many things at the same time is obviously one of the things that I do not always right.
Dr. Venable: Well, I think you certainly have figured out how to be successful at a lot of things, certainly impressive with your career. And then the other thing I want to talk about, because it if you're watching the video, you can see your backdrop. So you do some podcasts as well. And I listened to your podcast. I think they're great. I didn't realize before your podcast, though, that you're such a cat lover, and I'm seeing it on the backdrop. I mean, I'm assuming, are cats your favorite or what's your favorite?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Yeah. So my favorite dog is Little Chippy. He's not here, but he's my little dog right now. And I came from a dog family, pure dog family. But I love cats. The only issue I have with cats is that I'm very allergic to them. So I have this envy of people that can have cats. And I always wanted a cat in my life. So because I think cats are independent, they're agile. I mean, they reflect my personality really well. And so then I was thinking, okay, how can I do that? And maybe I should create a virtual cat. And so I'm giving a lot of lectures and we weren't real ones. I was with Dr. Susan Little, who's a very famous cat vet, said it. And the one thing that we noticed is that I don't know how many lectures you have given, but if you give lectures, you tend to get the same questions wherever you are in the world. And the questions are not always the questions that you expect, because sometimes they're questions we talked about like five minutes ago and they still asked questions, or it's in the book and they still ask the question. So it's questions. People are sometimes really confused.
And then we found out there's not a lot of research in cats. Cats are always the second chair. So you know, we always talk about dog first and then a little bit of cat at the end. So the two things I changed when I realized that is that I always talk cat first and then dog then Dr. Susan and I decided that we probably should do something about educating people about cats, because cats are really different. And so we couldn't find a lot. So we decided to start a podcast, which is the podcast, which is for the veterinary professionals. And then we have the Cat cafe, which is for cat owners, and we just have interviews with people that we never prepare anything. We just lure people in, and then we bombard them with all sorts of questions and up on our crazy brains. But it is a really good way to learn things about cats. And the latest and I found a way to have a lot of cat love in my life without really being involved with cats, because one of the reasons that I chose to be a surgeon was to that I wasn't actually with cats, and I was really allergic for dogs too. But because we had a dog at home, I was desensitized by that. And I never tried that were cats, because my dad and my mom were very allergic for cats too. So when there is a cat around, you get all the signs. And so when you're searching, you're all dressed up, so you don't have as many issues with that. As long as you wash your hands and don't put your fingers in your eye.
So for me, it was the way to be with cats. I love cats, I think they're extremely intelligent animals. They get the strangest diseases and we always say they only have four clinical signs. So anything looks in a cat like everything. But it's an incredible, amazing animal. I always refer to Egypt, which is another passion of myself, ancient Egypt, where cats were venerated because they were so important, and they were important because grain was the number one food in that region at that time. And the worst enemy of grain is mice. And the best friend is cats, because they will kill the mice and all the vermins that are there. So cats were venerated there. It used to be a desert animal, and now it has become a companion. But it's not a companion that walks around you all the time. So the cat you catered to, the cat doesn't cater to you. And that's one thing that I like again. So my little dog, he's fantastic. He's the best dog ever. If I would just put him in the dark in a strange forest, he will not survive for sure. He will cry and then I'll take him home again. A cat would say, “This is great, thank you very much. I will see you maybe in two days or ten days. I'm going to have some fun and I'll decide when I come back.” And that's what I love about cats.
Dr. Venable: I love it, you know. That is kind of hilarious. I would not have a guest. You started a podcast because you liked cats. I would not have connected the dots, so that's awesome. I love that and that's how you can be with cats. I love that too. That's very creative. You know, like even with surgery, that that's the way that you're able to interact with cats. I think that's fantastic.
We're kind of kind of wrapping up. I know you've got some stuff coming up too, so I just want to thank you so much. You gave so much good advice and it's so interesting to hear, you know, you're just different stories and how you're like, continues to change. And I think that's really inspiring and important for people to keep in mind that change can be a good thing. And so as we wrap up, just kind of the last thing I always like to ask people is, well, I guess two things for you. One, where can people find your podcasts?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: It's at puurpodcast.net or Catcafepodcast.net, but that's good enough. And then I have the Veterinary Surgery podcast. But I have to say that I haven't put too much emphasis on that because I've been kind of slacking. I want to pick it up again. But I used to have a podcast. It was talking about neck surgery too, so hopefully more news soon.
Dr. Venable: Perfect. And then also, who would you recommend to be on this podcast?
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Yeah, so I didn't look at your whole list of all the people that you had, but I'm not sure if you have Dr. Sarah Boston yet. Yeah, I know and I love her because, you know, she has the right amount of humor and because I totally adore. Did you get Steve Withrow already?
Dr. Venable: No, we haven't gotten Withrow, so I don't know if he does podcast. I don't know, maybe you could encourage him.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: Right? Right. No, he should, because like I said, he is the grandfather of us all. And the big stimulator, I mean, there's other major people too, but obviously, he is, and and if I can say one more thing before we end this podcast, is that anybody who's listening, you know, the one thing I would like to stimulate anybody to do is to also be part of associations, be active part of associations, because they do a lot for us, but we often don't get back. And I think it's really important. I've been part of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association. I've been part of the Veterinary Surgical Oncology Society. Now I'm part of the, WSAVA, World Small Animal Veterinary Association Oncology Committee. So it's so important to spread your knowledge in areas in the world that don't have what you have. So one, be happy for what you have and then spread the love to other people.
Dr. Venable: I love that, that is great advice. I think you finished the podcast perfectly. I could tell you've done this before. Thank you so much.
Dr. Kirpensteijn: All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Dr. Venable: Well, that's it for this episode of the Veterinary Cancer Pioneers podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insight, we would be so grateful if you could share our podcast with your friends and colleagues. And it would be even more wonderful if you want to give us a five-star rating, positive review, or any kind of feedback on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. The Veterinary Cancer Pioneers Podcast is presented to you by ImpriMed.