Students

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ALIYAH DIAMOND: I grew up in the suburbs an hour North of New York City with my mom, sister, and brother. We’re a really tight knit family. They’re my stability and they gave me a foundation to grow from. Especially my mom. She’s always supported me in my big dreams.

I’ve been a martial artist since I was six years old. I’ve earned black belts and national titles. And through karate, I developed perseverance. I got knocked down. I lost matches. I experienced disappointment. But each time, I chose to get back up and keep getting better.

It taught me to keep pushing, even when things were difficult, which is a practice I’ve needed many times on my path to becoming a veterinarian. I’ve always wanted to be a vet. At age 12, I started working in my hometown vet hospital cleaning cages and walking dogs.

It was that year that I got to watch my first surgical procedure. I saw a foreign body removal surgery, and something in my brain just clicked. I was amazed to see that we could help this dog that was so sick heal with surgery that we did.

I worked in that vet hospital until I went off to college. In college, I joined the prevet club, but found there was not much support to help me navigate the steps to actually get into vet school.

After my first semester, I decided to fix that. So I sat down and I made a spreadsheet of every single vet school in the country and every prerequisite class, grade, and experience that they’d require for me to get in. It gave me clarity and direction, and I spent the next three years sharing that and other things that I learned with my prevet club, so they don’t have to struggle to figure it out as much as I did.

When it came time for me to apply to vet school, I only applied to three universities in hoping to remain close to my family. Cornell had been my dream school since I was in high school. And when I got accepted, I felt so lucky. It validated all of the planning and hard work that I put in, though the hard work was really just getting started.

At the time, I was earning degrees in biology and wildlife public policy. I spent a summer in Thailand doing research on Asian elephants, and worked in the veterinary hospital for the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo.

In my first year at Cornell vet, I got a job as an emergency surgery technician. I quickly fell in love with the procedures and was proud that every time I got called in at 3:00 AM, I was part of a team that was helping to save a life.

I first heard about VEG from a campus ambassador, and while I was skeptical of corporate groups in general I decided to check them out. Through months of externships and becoming an ambassador myself, it became clear to me that these people really did walk the walk.

In three days at my first externship with VEG, I felt more included, supported, and part of the team than I had in three years at some previous practices I worked at. The externships I had at Carle Place and White Plains introduced me to a work environment that I never wanted to leave.

The Davids have furiously promoted a culture at VEG where you can grow and be successful. They care about VEGies as people, they listen to what could go better, and they actually take action. That’s what I want from a leadership team as I become a new veterinarian.

Why would I want to work anywhere else? When I got accepted into VEG’s 2023 early entry track program, it felt like such a huge win in my life. I mean, I’d secured the dream job post-graduation. Then came an even bigger surprise.

[? DAVID GLATTSTEIN: ?] The 2023 VEG scholarship winner is Aliyah Diamond. Congratulations.

[APPLAUSE][? DAVID BESSLER: ?] And there’s one thing that we’re sure of is your commitment to the VEG nation.

ALIYAH DIAMOND: I’m so excited to be a part of this team. VEG truly believes in me and my potential, which inspires me to work even harder. I want to bring all of my ideas and strengths to VEG, so that I can become the best doctor and leader I can be in this amazing place that helps people and their pets when they need it most.

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DAVID BESSLER: This year, we’re awarding two scholarship winners with a VEG scholarship, which pays for their entire fourth year of vet school. We made this decision for two reasons– COVID-19 limited our travel and canceled our conferences. We thought what better way to spend that money we saved than to help more excellent VEGgies pay for school and begin their careers as emergency doctors?

We’ve been to school campuses across the country, but what we’ve heard from you is that your biggest concern is student debt. Now more than ever with uncertain financial times ahead, we want to provide that support for our future VEGgies who need it most. Ashley has a very strong sense of family. Her drive comes from her desire to make her family proud, to bring them along with her in her heart on her journey to becoming a great emergency doctor.

Ashley truly exemplifies the veg value of togetherness.

ASHLEY NEWMAN: Throughout my childhood, I always wanted to be a veterinarian, and everybody around me always knew it. My family has taught me strength and resilience through a lot of my parents’ hardships. My mom was diagnosed with stage four cancer when I was a junior in high school and she fought for six long years. Through that, she taught me and my brothers both strength and resilience and that we should never give up on anything that we believe in.

Even though she’s not here and she’s looking down on me, I have strived to do everything I could for her and to keep her proud and become an emergency veterinarian. Two years later, I got accepted to Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and I could hear my mom in the back of my head saying, I knew you could do it. I knew you could do it.

Two years into veterinary school, we found out that my father was diagnosed with stage one cancer. And about a year later, we found out that it had progressed to stage four cancer. Through his hardship, he has never, ever, ever, stopped continuing on for us. Both my parents are my biggest inspirations and my biggest role models. They are the reason that I’m here and where I am today. And getting my fourth year paid for is going to be a huge financial relief for me and for my family as well.

STEPHANIE REY: I’ve known Ashley for about four years now. She’s dependable, humble, smart, and funny. She really does know the importance of family, and that’s exactly what VEG is. The second our customers walk through the door, we really try and make them feel like they’re part of our family. I know she’s going to be an amazing ER doctor because she’s caring, compassionate, and approaches every situation with an open mind and really wants to help people and their pets when they need it most.

DAVID BESSLER: Yvette represents the VEG value of openness– the opportunity for everyone, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or from where they come to experience the meaningful and heroic moments that come with being a VEG emergency doctor. She shouts that value from the rooftops for her classmates as well as for aspiring veterinarians around the world.

YVETTE HUIZAR: I grew up in Ceres, California, which is a small town in the Central Valley. And I was raised by my mom who was a single parent. As a family, we faced a lot of challenges together. And something that we never lacked was love and support from my mom and from one another.

I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and that was super important for me because I know that’s something that my mom really wanted to do. So for me, it’s a win for my entire family, not just me. My mom is my biggest inspiration. She was born in Mexico. She decided to raise us in the United States because she knew that this is where we would have the most opportunities.

And seeing her journey as an immigrant and as a single mother really empowers me to follow my passion because I’m fulfilling what she wanted for me. That’s why she chose to raise us here. I was really lucky as a kid to be able to go to Mexico with my grandparents. They live in Zacatecas, Mexico. They have a farm with chickens, goats, cows. So that was basically my playground. And from a very early age, I knew that I was going to work with animals.

In my third year of veterinary school, I connected with my colleague, Juancho. And so together, we decided to found the Latinx Veterinary Medical Association. And our biggest goal with that is to support the next generation of students that are Latinx and that want to pursue a career in veterinarian medicine.

BETHANY WEINHEIMER: What struck me most about Yvette was her passion for emergency medicine. And that passion that we saw and that dedication that we saw in Yvette was something that we strive to find in all of our veterinarians. The spirit that embodies Yvette is one that we look for in each doctor, and I think that that’s what’s going to make her a great VEGgie.

YVETTE HUIZAR: Something that makes me really excited about joining VEG is that it’s a progressive and new company that is trying to create more opportunities for underrepresented minorities. I hope that I’ll be able to collaborate with VEG in the future with initiatives that the Latinx Veterinary American Medical Association has.

ASHLEY NEWMAN: I am so excited and happy that VEG is making emergency medicine a sustainable career. And to become a part of the VEGgolution is truly amazing.

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