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By Jordana Rich
Like many of his students, Bruce Hollett started down the path into veterinary medicine in childhood.
 “My father raised Labrador retrievers; he bred them, trained them and used the dogs in hunting, so I was used to being with animals and caring for them,” he says. “Then, when I was a senior in high school, I decided on veterinary medicine because it was a career where I could combine my interest in medicine and biology with caring for animals.”
Hollett went on to graduate with a D.V.M. degree in the UGA class of 1972. His class’s photo hangs in the college’s main corridor, just down the hall from the office where he now works.
“I started my career in teaching and then went into private practice--first in Virginia, then in Kentucky. During my first year as resident veterinarian on a horse farm in Kentucky, we had a horse win the Kentucky Derby,” Hollett says. “The horse, named Gato Del Sol, went from last to first; odds were 22 to 1, and he won.”
After succeeding as a practitioner, Hollett says, the time was right to come back to UGA, where he worked with the Cooperative Extension Service before returning to the college from which he had graduated almost 20 years before.
 “If I try to describe an average day in my job, I’ll have to be specific about the day; there just isn’t a typical day here,” Hollett says. With time divided between teaching, clinics, continuing education, and his duties as chief-of-staff for field services, he is usually on the move.
As part of his work in field services, he often travels to farms to treat cows and horses, goats and sheep. Working primarily in theriogenology, or reproductive medicine, Hollett’s expertise is critical to clients and their animals. His day may include everything from diagnosing an infertility problem in a bassett hound to performing pregnancy checks on dairy cows.
Whether in the hospital or on a farm, teaching is fundamental in Hollett’s work. Each year he instructs seniors in field services and juniors in a theriogenology course.
“The first question I ask a student is what do you want to do with your veterinary degree?” he says. “It’s rare for me to have students who don’t like being outdoors and with animals on a farm. Even if they intend to work only with small animals, exposure to the life of a vet who works with a variety of animals is good for students.”
In addition to his work with students and in clinics, Hollett directs the college’s continuing education office. Because state laws mandate that veterinarians continue to receive credit hours in their field after graduation, veterinarians from across the Southeast attend conferences at UGA.
“The courses offer a way to learn new techniques, but--equally important--they provide an opportunity to interact with former classmates and colleagues,” Hollett says. “Having been on my own as a practitioner in the field, I know how important those contacts are.”
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