Meet the NorthStar VETS Team: Kate Kerrigan, DVM, MS, DACVR


Dr. Kate Kerrigan is a member of the Veterinary Radiology team at NorthStar VETS. In this blog post and video below, she talks about her decision to go into veterinary medicine, how Radiologists fit into the overall team caring for pets, and what she gets out of helping pets in this way.

Dr. Kerrigan’s education
We caught up with Dr. Kerrigan, who was performing an ultrasound on a patient in Robbinsville. Dr. Kerrigan has been working in Radiology at NorthStar VETS since 2014, and she has always wanted to work in medicine. “I knew wanted to do some type of medicine, but wasn’t sure what type, but when I was in my second year of undergraduate work at the University of Connecticut, I took a class called Health and Disease Management of Animals, and it really caught my attention. I enjoyed the instructors and I loved the class work, and I made up my mind from there. I worked a couple of years after that as an uncertified veterinary technician before I went to veterinary school, and I ended up going to the University of Illinois for four years. I did my internship at the University of Pennsylvania, and then went back the University of Illinois in Champaign for my residency, which was a three-year imaging residency. I started looking for jobs after I passed the boards and ended up in New Jersey because I am originally from Connecticut and wanted to be back on the east coast.”

What Veterinary Radiologists do
Dr. Kerrigan works in the NorthStar VETS Radiology department and oversees all of the advanced imaging between both hospitals. “I read all of the radiographs both for the Robbinsville location and the Maple Shade location. I do a lot of the ultrasounds in the hospital and the Internal Medicine specialists do some as well, so we share that caseload. Dr. Williams, our other Radiologist, and I both read all of the CTs and MRIs that go on in the hospital. It’s a fun job in that we’re involved in all aspects of medicine among the different services, but we act behind the scenes.”

Dr. Kerrigan works with a wide variety of cases, helping to provide all kinds of medical imaging. “I really like the patient interaction at NorthStar VETS. A lot of Radiologists have the ability now to work from home exclusively doing Telemedicine, which is really becoming very popular, but being in clinical practice, especially in a big specialty hospital, was really important to me because I get to see the patients, I get to be hands-on, I really enjoy the other doctors and technicians, and that’s what I really like about it here. The quality of medicine is great and the staff is great.”

What Dr. Kerrigan loves about being a Veterinary Radiologist
Dr. Kerrigan and the team at NorthStar VETS will continue to provide world-class care to you and your pets. “The human-animal bond is something that really pulls at my heartstrings and made me realize I wanted to be involved and practice medicine of some sort. Radiology just fell into place for me in veterinary school, so I feel like I have the best of both worlds. I get to interact with the patients, I get to be involved with the imaging, and work with all the different services, and that’s what I love about it.”

Learn more about the Radiology service at NorthStar VETS

Kate Kerrigan, DVM, MS, DACVRKate Kerrigan, DVM, MS, DACVR
Dr. Kerrigan, originally from Connecticut, is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. She completed a rotating internship at the University of Pennsylvania and returned to Illinois to complete her residency in diagnostic imaging in 2014. During the course of her residency, she also completed a Master’s degree in veterinary clinical medicine. Dr. Kerrigan joined NorthStar VETS in 2014. Her clinical interests include CT angiography, and emergency imaging.

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