Jacksonville Review – October 2023
Jacksonville Veterinary Hospital welcomes a new fulltime veterinarian for the first time in eight years. A recent graduate of Oregon State University’s Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Michaela Jo Brubaker started at the end of July. She is a familiar face around the hospital, as she spent her summers working as a veterinary assistant from 2018 to 2021. Dr. Brubaker is looking forward to honing her clinical and surgical skills under the mentorship and friendly support offered by the amazing staff and community at Jacksonville Veterinary Hospital.
Dr. Brubaker grew up outside Salt Lake City. She has always had a strong love for animals. She became a vegetarian at the age of eight and has wanted to be a veterinarian for as long as she can remember. From an early age, she developed a strong passion for animal welfare and over the years has been involved with several animal rescue groups. She moved to the Rogue Valley with her family in 2012 and graduated from North Medford High School in 2015. For her senior project, she volunteered at the Southern Oregon Humane Society, helping to socialize timid dogs. She then attended Utah State University in Logan where she continued pursuing her passion for animal rescue. She spent a summer as an intern at Sanctuary One here in the Applegate Valley. During her time at Utah State University, she was named the 2018-2019 Scholar of the Year for the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences. She graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2019, receiving her Bachelor of Science in Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science with an emphasis in Bioveterinary Science and with minors in Biology and Chemistry. After graduation, she completed an animal care internship at Best Friends Animal Society, a large non-profit animal rescue organization located in Kanab, Utah.
She then attended the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine at Oregon State University in Corvallis. During veterinary school, she was highly involved with the Shelter Medicine Club and acted as a student representative for the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association. She also continued to develop her interest in South American camelid medicine, which she plans to put to use when she fulfills her lifelong dream of owning alpacas. As a fourth-year veterinary student, she completed externships at Jacksonville Veterinary Hospital, the Southern Oregon Veterinary Specialty Center, and once again at Best Friends Animal Society.
Since graduation, Dr. Brubaker has moved back to Medford to live with her family. Her menagerie of pets currently includes a cat, a cockatiel, a leopard gecko, and an aquarium full of fish and snails. In her free time, Dr. Brubaker enjoys hiking, camping, and backpacking. She tries to spend a week each year camping and hiking in a different national park. She also enjoys cooking, baking, and gardening. To celebrate the completion of eight years of post-secondary education, this summer she spent a week in the south of France, and another week in Norway visiting her grandfather.
Dr. Brubaker is enjoying becoming a more permanent resident of the Rogue Valley and serving as a full-time member of the Jacksonville Veterinary Hospital team. She is eager to learn and is always striving to improve her clinical and surgical knowledge. Dr. Brubaker cannot wait to meet more of the people and pets that call Jacksonville home and share her passion for high- quality veterinary care.