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Suzy Fincham-Gray

Local author and veterinarian Suzy Fincham-Gray will be at The Book Catapult on Friday, May 11 at 7:00pm to discuss and sign her new book, My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian's Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope. Suzy is a vet at the B Street Veterinary Hospital in Golden Hill.

The pursuit of a childhood dream has taken Suzy Fincham-Gray on a journey in veterinary medicine from pastoral farms on the English–Welsh border to emergency rooms in urban American animal hospitals, with thousands of stories collected along the way. In this unforgettable literary debut, she writes about some of the most emotionally challenging and rewarding cases of her career. Like many physicians, Fincham-Gray tends to see her patients at often life-or-death moments. While dramatic, these stories expand into deeper explorations of our complex, profound relationships with the animals in our lives. She describes the satisfaction of diagnosing and treating difficult diseases and the universal experience of loving a pet, and—inevitably—raises questions about their end-of-life care. We meet Grayling, an Irish wolfhound in need of critical treatment; we learn about the fulfillment of caring for a chronically ill pet from the story of Zeke, a silver-brown tabby cat who likes to eat just a little too much; and we fall in love with Monty and Emma, Fincham-Gray’s own adopted cat and dog, who change her life in joyful and unexpected ways. Fincham-Gray depicts the sleepless nights she spends waiting for her pager to call her to the clinic, the cutthroat competition among residents, and what it’s really like to care for patients who can’t advocate for themselves.

            

Warm and humorous, Suzy Fincham-Gray is a rare breed—a clinician with an intimate, elegant literary style. She writes with the same tenderness she brings to her patients, whose needs she must meet with her mind, her hands, and her heart. 

Suzy is a veterinarian and board-certified small-animal internal medicine specialist. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside–Palm Desert. She lives in San Diego with her husband, daughter, three cats, and two dogs. Her extended family still live in England, but they often visit with suitcases crammed with Marmite. My Patients and Other Animals is her first book.

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Date: 05/11/2018
Time: 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Place:

3010-B Juniper Street
San Diego, CA 92104
United States