Meet the NorthStar VETS Team: Dominick Valenzano, DVM

Dominick Valenzano, DVM is a doctor in the Surgery service at NorthStar VETS. In this video, he talks about leaving engineering to get into veterinary medicine, the types of cases he sees, and what drew him to NorthStar VETS to start his career.

How Dr. Valenzano got into Veterinary Medicine
We caught up with Dr. Valenzano, who was checking on a patient. Dr. Valenzano is a doctor on the Surgery team at NorthStar VETS and he originally planned to be an engineer before finding his passion for veterinary medicine. “When I was an undergraduate, I was studying Engineering at the University of Maryland, and while I was there, i got a job at a veterinary clinic as an assistant. I ended up loving the job so much that I switched my major around and after that I ended up going to veterinary school at Cornell University. After graduating veterinary school, I did a one-year internship at the University of Pennsylvania and then following that, a three-year residency in Surgery at Cornell University.”

“I first heard about NorthStar VETS from another employee who works here. They spoke very highly of the hospital, that it was a very collaborative hospital with a lot of great resources. I interviewed a few months after that and then accepted the job several months after that.”

The Types of Cases Dr. Valenzano Sees
NorthStar VETS sees a wide variety of unique cases each week. “So far, a typical week has been balancing several appointments and cases with other emergencies that come up that are more urgent and need to be dealt with quickly. Those could be anything from orthopedic cases such as trauma (like fractures), to cruciate tears, and a wide variety of soft-tissue cases both emergent and elective.”

What Dr. Valenzano Loves about NorthStar VETS
NorthStar VETS has more than 45 doctors working in 15 different specialties, and all of them work together to provide world class care to their patients. “What I’ve really appreciated about NorthStar VETS is the tremendous amount of support and collaboration that you can find here. There are so many different specialties and highly-trained technicians that makes everything that you need to do much easier.”

Dr. Valenzano really enjoys working with clients and helping to keep pets healthy. “I think that they see all the hard work we do, and when you are able to have a lot of really great outcomes, it keeps you motivated to want to keep coming back in.”

Learn more about the Surgery service at NorthStar VETS.

Dominick Valenzano, DVM (practice limited to surgery)
Dr. Valenzano grew up in central New Jersey and is excited to join the NorthStar VETS surgery team. Dr. Valenzano obtained his Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Maryland in 2011. During his undergraduate studies, he worked as a veterinary technician which inspired him to go to veterinary school. He graduated from Cornell University?EUR(TM)s Veterinary School in 2015 and then completed a rotating internship at Ryan Veterinary Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. After his internship, he completed his three-year residency program at Cornell University Hospital for Animals in 2019. His surgical interests include minimally invasive surgery, orthopedic surgery, and cardiothoracic surgery. He is trained in the tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO) for cranial cruciate ligament disease.