How Do You Science | Meet a Fish Veterinarian

Welcome back, young scientists. I’m Dr. Universe.  If you’re anything like me, you’ve got lots of big questions about our world.
  
 How do you become a scientist? What does a scientist's day look like? Is being a scientist fun?
 
 In this episode, we meet Nora Hickey, a fish veterinarian at Washington State University. We learn about fish medicine and why it’s important to follow your interests as you grow up. 

As always, submit burning questions at askdruniverse.wsu.edu.  Who knows where your questions will take us next.

Ask Dr. Universe is a service of Washington State University geared toward an 8- to 13-year-old audience. Check out WSU Veterinary Medicine’s Outreach Events—like the Teddy Bear Clinic—to find university experiences like Dr. Hickey had when she was a kid.

As always, submit burning questions at askdruniverse.wsu.edu. Who knows where your questions will take us next.

Transcript

Dr. Universe

Hi, friends. I’m Dr. Universe, and if you're anything like me, you've got lots of big questions about our world. 

I first met Nora Hickey when I was answering a question about how to know if your betta fish is happy. She's a fish veterinarian, and I can't wait for you to hear about her job. Let's get started.

I am so excited to talk to you. I had no idea that there were veterinarians who specialized in fish until I talked to you. So, I wanted to hear what that job is like. 

Dr. Hickey

It's a pretty cool job. It's interesting because any fish veterinarian you talk to might have a wildly different answer than another fish veterinarian. What I do can be pretty different from what my other fish veterinarian colleagues do. My current job is working in the veterinary diagnostic lab at WSU. I’m managing the aquatic health lab where we do testing for fish health certification.

So, if a fish farmer wants to move their fish to a different state or a different country, they have to get their fish tested for certain diseases, and we do that here. Prior to this job, I worked for Indian tribes in Western Washington. I did fish health services for tribal hatcheries. So, they had Pacific salmon at these hatcheries—sometimes adults, sometimes little guys. If those fish got sick, I would go and look at them. And I would go look at them to do preventative stuff, too, which was a pretty fun job. 

But I have colleagues that work at public aquariums. I have colleagues that work almost like a large animal vet but for fish farms. I have colleagues that work in regulatory agencies, regulating drugs that are used in fish. It's pretty wild what fish vets get up to. 

Dr. Universe

That's so cool. When you look at a fish to examine it, I imagine you probably look at it to see if it shows any signs of being sick. But do you have to take blood from a fish like you would a person or a cat?

Dr. Hickey

What's pretty interesting—and this is another reason why fish vets can be so different—like in my old job, I would look at a raceway that had 100,000 fish in it. So, you have to decide what fish you should be looking at. That can be hard. If you're working at a public aquarium, you might have a single individual fish in a tank that isn't looking well and that you end up deciding to do something with.

 It's also interesting because the approach of fish vets that are working with food fish and large populations is different than with pet fish. If I'm looking at 100,000 fish, I might choose some sick fish and then do a necropsy on them, which is when you euthanize them and then look at them and take different diagnostic samples to figure out what's going on.

 But if you're in the public aquarium world or you're working with pet fish or koi, you can do non-lethal testing. So, you can take blood from a fish. We like to do skin scrapes, which is where you scrape off a little bit of the mucus. You're not actually scraping off skin, but you scrape off a little bit of mucus. Then you might look to see if there's parasites or bacteria. You can do ultrasounds on fish. You can do X-rays on fish. I mean, if you can do it to another animal, you can do it to a fish. 

 Dr. Universe

 That's amazing. Did you always know that you wanted to be a fish vet? 

 Dr. Hickey

 Yeah, I've always been very into aquarium fish. I've had them since I was pretty small. When I was in college, I also worked on the campus ambulance, and I was like, "Oh, I can do medicine and fish by becoming a fish vet." I was volunteering at a public aquarium during college, and I thought maybe that was a route that I would want to pursue. But I did think I will go into vet school and become a fish vet.

 Even in vet school people thought that was pretty wild, which is funny because there have been many fish vets for many years. I have a lot of older colleagues who have been excellent mentors. But, yeah, it's kind of wild that even veterinarians sometimes don't know that some of their fellow veterinarians are looking after fish.

 Dr. Universe

 What is it about fish that you like so much? 

 Dr. Hickey

 Ooh, that's a good question. I think the cool thing about fish is that there are so many different kinds of fish. With dogs and cats, cats are all the same species, and dogs are all the same species. With fish, there's like—I can't remember the number—tens of thousands different species of fish.

 And they can be really different. I mean, you have fish that have lungs. You have fish that are freshwater and saltwater. They're just so different. I also really like catfish. 

 I think the appeal of fish is that they're really fun to keep as pets, observing them and trying to understand them because they're very different. With a dog and a cat, you feed them some kibble and pet them, and they're really happy. But it can be a lot harder to figure out what might be going on with your fish and how to take care of them. So, I think that's kind of the fun part about them.

 Dr. Universe

 I love that. What is the best part of your job? 

 Dr. Hickey

 I just started this job, so I'm liking everything about it so far. That's how you hope it goes with a new job—that everything is the best part. I've gotten to see a ton of different kinds of fish while I've been here. Today we're going to get some sharks that we’ll be doing necropsies on. So, that's pretty cool. Sharks are pretty exciting. With a veterinary diagnostic lab, you never know what people are going to send. I've gotten to see a lot of really interesting species of fish and even things like aquatic invertebrates. I really like that you never know what type of fish or aquatic creature is going to come in the doors.

 Dr. Universe

 Is there a part of your job that's the most challenging? 

 Dr. Hickey

I think the hardest thing about being a vet for fish is that, when you go to vet school, most of what you learn about are the four major species: dogs, cats, horses, and cows. So, you learn a lot about those, and you have a pretty good understanding of when a horse gets sick, these are the most common things that it might be. This is what a normal horse looks like, and this is what a sick horse looks like. 

 But, with fish, it's a lot harder. You might have a species of fish given to you that you can't even find a single paper that talks about diseases in that species. And so it can be pretty hard to figure out where to start.

That's also the fun of it—that you're always having to figure things out and research and ask people things and think critically. But it can also be frustrating because, if it were a dog or cat, you would have a much better idea and plan for how to fix it. That can be a lot harder with fish because it can be a huge investigative process to figure out what's wrong with them. 

Dr. Universe

You're like a detective. 

Dr. Hickey

There is a lot of detective work. That's true for all veterinarians, but I think it's just especially pronounced when you're working with fish.

Dr. Universe

Do you have any funny stories about being a fish veterinarian? 

Dr. Hickey

I had a lady who called me, and she had a goldfish named Clyde. Clyde had an eye problem. So his—I think it was his right eye—was really messed up, and she wanted me to look at it and do something to treat it. 

So, one of the hardest things about being a fish veterinarian is there aren’t enough people who want vets to look at their fish that you could open up a fish vet clinic the way you would have a small animal hospital. So, lots of fish vets are mobile—so they'll come to you—or they'll have a less traditional clinic setting. 

So, I told her, "Do you have a regular vet that you use? I'll come there, and you can bring your fish there, and we'll do this surgery." I got all set up, figuring I would have to take this eye out, and I just remember everyone there was very excited because they didn't got a lot of fish. But one of the doctors in the clinic came out rolling one of the surgical tables—like a stretcher you would have a really big dog on that you'd have to bring in the clinic. He rolled it out, and this lady had her gold fish in a 10-gallon aquarium. We picked it up, and we set it on this table, and then rolled it into the clinic. It was like an ER scene but, instead of a person or a big dog on it, it was this 10-gallon tank with Clyde the goldfish inside it going into the hospital.

I still have a picture of that. It just cracked me up to watch. So, he ended up being really good. We took out his eye. He had cancer.  But he lived for like 6 months afterwards and healed up really well, and he was quite happy. So that was a kind of an interesting case. But, yes, Clyde got a luxury ride into the vet clinic. 

Dr. Universe

Oh, Clyde. 

Dr. Hickey

Then we called him One-Eyed Clyde afterwards. 

 Dr. Universe

 When you did surgery on Clyde, did he stay in his tank? 

 Dr. Hickey

 No. What you do is you have the fish out of the water. Usually you'll put down some sort of wet paper towels or sponge or something to keep them really wet—because they need to stay wet. When terrestrial animals get surgery, they have an endotracheal tube that helps put the anesthetic into their lungs. What you do for fish is you have a little tube that you stick in their mouth, and you pump water through it that has an anesthetic agent. Then it flushes over their gills and keeps them asleep and helps them continue to breathe. And then you work on them out of the water pretty quickly. It only took like five minutes. Then you stick them back in the aquarium, and they wake up and hopefully do well. 

 Dr. Universe

 Oh, wow. I would've had no idea. That's so cool. 

 Dr. Hickey

 Yeah, fish surgery is pretty cool. I think one of my colleagues has some videos about it actually. If you look on YouTube or the internet, some fish vets have videos of them doing surgical procedures on koi and goldfish mostly. 

 Dr. Universe

 Wow. Did you like science when you were a kid? 

 Dr. Hickey

I did. Yep. When I was really little, I was going to become a horse vet because I really liked horses. I grew up in Wisconsin, and they had Saturday educational things for kids where you could go to the university. Different departments had fun things to do, which I think WSU has some of that too.

Dr. Universe 

Mm-hmm. Yes. [Here’s a link to WSU’s Teddy Bear Clinic event. xDr. Universe]

Dr. Hickey

I did that at the vet school. I remember getting to go into the anatomy lab and see all that stuff. It was funny because I sort of ended up deciding, "Eh, maybe I don't want be a vet," but I came back to it and came back to fish. So it's a good example of how it's always fine to change your mind and then change your mind again when you're thinking about what you want to do.

Dr. Universe

Do you have any advice for a kid who wants to have your job when they grow up? 

Dr. Hickey

Keep lots of fish tanks. That's my advice for everybody. I think when you're little, you really appreciate animals in a way that sometimes harder as an adult. You know, spending time with animals, learning about them. For fish, have some fish tanks, keep a couple different kinds of fish, and see what they're up to. 

And then always follow what you're interested in because sometimes that changes over time or sometimes you learn about new things. I think the most important thing when you're growing up is to follow things that you're interested in. It will lead you to a pretty cool career down the road. Even if it wasn't what you thought you’re going to be when you're little, it'll still be cool. 

One other fun thing for kids that are interested in becoming veterinarians or kids that are interested in animals is to check out any zoos or aquariums in your area. Because that can be really interesting to see all sorts of fish that you might not be able to have at your house. Or, you know, tigers. You can have your cat, which is like a little tiger, but it's not quite the same. 

Dr. Universe 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for talking to me, Dr. Hickey. 

Dr. Hickey

Thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed talking to you about Neely's question about betta fish. That was a great question. I'm hoping that some kids who are interested in fish or in veterinary medicine might hear this and decide to be a fish vet someday.

Dr. Universe

Me too. And I hope that I get more fish questions so I can ask them to you. 

That's all for this episode, friends. Big thanks to Nora Hickey for giving us a window into fish medicine. 

As always, if you've got a question tickling your brain, you can submit it at https://askdruniverse.wsu.edu/. That's A S K D R U N I V E R S E dot W S U dot E D U. 

Who knows where your questions will take us next.