Skip to main content

Career Spotlight: Ananda Pires

Published on: Sep 9, 2024

Career Spotlight Ananda Pires

This is the latest in a series of interviews with Board-certified veterinary specialists of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) to share insights, knowledge and expertise about career opportunities, growth and development. Today we hear from recently Board-certified Veterinary Cardiologist Dr. Ananda Pires.

Dr. Ananda Pires was born and raised in south Brazil, where she earned her DVM degree and completed a specialty program before moving to Canada in 2018. There, she completed a rotating internship and cardiology residency at the University of Guelph. Dr. Pires became a Board-certified Veterinary Cardiologist in 2023 and works part-time at Toronto Animal Health Partners while also finalizing her PhD, which is focused on the influence of age in the cardiac structure and function in cats.  She loves to be close to the water has a passion for dancing salsa, bachata, and Brazilian rhythms including pagoda, samba, and funk. 


What inspired you to become a Board-certified veterinary specialist?
I think what inspired me was myself and desire of being better on what I do. Since vet school, I knew I wanted to be a cardiologist. In Brazil at that time, cardiology wasn’t considered a specialty and wasn’t valued. I knew I wanted more for my career and I wanted to be able to learn from the best. Knowing that I would have training from the best in the field helped me to follow the path of becoming a Board-certified specialist.

Are there any resources or pieces of advice that helped you along the way? 
I think the best resource is within you. There is no one that knows your capability and limitations better than yourself. I think the only advice I have in relation to that is listen to the voice inside that inspires you, because we can also be our worst enemy and talk ourselves out of following our dreams because it is hard. Despite how hard it is, how long it takes, if it is your dream, you should follow.  

Is there a story or experience that stands out in your mind that reaffirmed your decision to work in specialty veterinary medicine?
I think for me this is more like an everyday reaffirmation. Every day when I help one animal, when I am able to buy a few months more for a pet to live with the owners, when I get those thank you cards after a patient has died because, despite the grief, the owners are thankful for the work I did to help them… that’s what reaffirms me that I was right to go through the process of specializing and be able to help sick patients (in a specialty in which there are not a lot of us) as much as I can.  

What do you consider one of your career successes? How did you achieve it?
I think my biggest career success was to achieve Board-certification. I didn’t pass my first attempt at the specialty boards, which was a moment of a lot of doubt towards myself. I had gone through a lot of difficulties in my personal life and that was an even bigger heavy weight on me. I felt I failed my residency, my career, my supervisors, my colleagues. I felt a failure. With a lot of work on myself, in my confidence, opening up about the fact, talking about it, and normalizing it, helped me to see things clearer. On the second attempt, I was nervous, but I used the “failure feeling” to give me more strength to study. I worked on my mental health and the way I was seeing myself and the failure. This helped me to be more calm and less anxious during the exam, which helped me to pass (YAY!). 

What do you consider a challenge you’ve faced in your career? How did you overcome it?
Depression. When I started my internship, I had just moved countries, I left my family and friends behind, I faced my first Canadian winter (it is no joke!) and I was working about 80-100 hours per week with the challenge of the different culture, different language. I had severe depression. A lot changed in my personal life and after starting my residency, the challenges only increased as COVID hit and the challenges of that on its own was gigantic. Only time, therapy, "happy pills" for a while (that’s what I call antidepressants), finding hobbies that allowed me to have a “me time” even during the busy residency schedule, and a lot of support from my friends and supervisors helped me to overcome. I found a passion and hobby that still keeps my mental health in check and helped me to do something outside of the veterinary setting and to decompress from the stressful work and times I was living in. I currently continue to work on myself and my mental health, making sure I get time to do things I am passionate about outside of work. It is always a work in progress that only allow us to be better for our patients and clients at the end of the day.

What do you wish the general public knew about veterinary specialists?
We are incredibly passionate about what we do. And, although we are specialists, we are not Gods, we are humans. We will always do our best to save, serve, and protect our patients, but we don’t know everything. And there will be times where we will also feel scared, worried and defeated by your loss, your suffer and your pet’s.

What does a typical workday look like for you?
Busy! I work Mondays and Tuesdays at the clinic. I wake up around 5 AM and go to the gym because there is nothing more important than taking care of myself and my health with such a stressful and heavy work. I arrive at the clinic around 7:30-8 AM. I reserve the time from 8:00-8:45 AM to do the in-house consults that come through the ER or use this time to reply to emails. I normally should have 6 consults scheduled in my day. Most of the time, I have 2-4 extra squeezed in the schedule if the patients are not doing well. So usually, per day, I am seeing at least 8-10 patients. At the moment, because I am only part-time, I am not doing procedures. Once I finish my PhD, I plan to become full-time at the clinic and then very likely will start to do procedures.  

What is something unique about your career, or career path?
I think every story is unique. But maybe for me, first, having experienced veterinary medicine in Brazil allowed me to be more flexible and to learn to do things on my own and to not depend on anyone to get things done. Having help is great, but being independent and flexible at your job opens your perspective. Second, I think we high-achievers have a very similar mindset on what and where we want to be in our careers at a certain point. What might be also unique in mine is that I gave up on trying to be the high-achiever I was telling myself I was when I faced depression, and had to choose me over my career. I know a lot of people that, to date, are unhappy, or “happy” but burned out because they think they must live up to certain expectation they put on themselves. Well, I let that go, and I am much happier with where I am in my life now. I am happy with my career choices, I am happy that I make sure to take care of myself, my health, and my mental health so I can be more complete for my patients and clients. 

..

Learn more about the ACVIM and ACVIM Diplomates >>