This work is personal before it's professional.

I grew up in a veterinary household. My father owned a private practice for nearly 40 years — the kind where overnight emergency calls were routine, weekends were rarely his, and twelve-hour days were simply the expectation. Every stressor that moved through that practice eventually stopped at him. The weight of the team, the clients, the animals, the business — it all landed in one place.

You would never have known it from the outside. He was steady. Professional. Present. The kind of veterinarian people drove an hour to see because they trusted him completely.

What I didn't understand until I became a trauma therapist and stress physiology specialist — and what he has spoken about more openly since stepping back from practice — is that there were seasons when the cumulative weight was nearly crushing. He carried it quietly, the way this profession tends to train people to do, because that's what the culture asked of him.

That gap — between what veterinary medicine asks of the people who practice it and what it gives them to handle it — is where my work lives.

The clinical background

I am a practicing trauma therapist with over two decades of clinical experience. That foundation isn't incidental to what I do in education and training — it's the reason I can translate neuroscience into tools that actually work in a real clinical day rather than in theory.

My work integrates Polyvagal Theory, adaptive information processing, cognitive load science, and positive psychology — not as separate frameworks but as a unified understanding of how the brain and nervous system respond to sustained high-demand work, and how to interrupt those patterns before they become permanent.

I hold a PhD in psychology, am a Licensed Professional Counselor, and am certified as a First Responder Counselor — a credential that specifically prepared me to work with professionals in high-stress, high-stakes occupational environments. I am also trained in EMDR, certified in the EQ-i 2.0 emotional intelligence assessment, and hold certification in the Hardiness Resilience Gauge.

My continuing education programs for veterinary professionals are RACE-approved. My healthcare programs are jointly provided with the Postgraduate Institute for Medicine.

Why veterinary medicine specifically

Every high-stress profession has its demands. Veterinary medicine has a specific combination that I don't think gets named clearly enough:

The cognitive load is relentless. The emotional range required in a single shift — from a devastating loss to a joyful wellness visit — is extraordinary. The culture has historically treated struggle as personal failing rather than occupational reality. And the people most at risk are often the most competent — the ones who have learned to keep going long past the point where their nervous system needed them to stop.

Generic wellness programs don't reach these professionals. They've sat through the breathing exercises. They know what self-care is “supposed” to look like. What they need are tools that are specific to their nervous system state, their clinical environment, and the actual texture of their workday.

That's what I build with them.

Speaking and training

I develop and deliver continuing education programs for veterinary conferences, corporate veterinary groups, and veterinary technology programs. My speaking engagements have included:

• Southwest Veterinary Symposium (SWVS), 2026

• Genesee Community College Veterinary Technology Program

• SPARTA — National Organization Supporting Army Ranger Families

My RACE-approved programs address compassion fatigue, cognitive overload, euthanasia-related stress, and nervous system regulation in clinical veterinary settings.

What I offer

My work with veterinary professionals takes three forms:

Speaking & CE — RACE-approved workshops and keynotes for conferences and corporate veterinary groups, delivered in-person or virtually.

Coaching — Small-group and one-on-one coaching for veterinary professionals who want to build sustainable practice. Group cohorts run six weeks on Zoom. One-on-one coaching is available biweekly for independent practitioners.

Critical Incident Response — Structured, evidence-based virtual support for veterinary teams following a traumatic event, using the ASSYST protocol. Available to independent practices and corporate groups.

A note on how I work

I am not going to tell you how to practice veterinary medicine. You know how to do that.

What I offer is a grounded, science-based framework for understanding what's happening in your brain and body under sustained pressure — and specific tools to work with your nervous system rather than against it.

The goal isn't resilience as a performance standard. It's sustainability as a way of practicing the work you love for as long as you want to practice it.

📩 kelly@kellybaezphd.com | www.kellybaezphd.com 📞 470-816-1998