INTERVIEW: These two vets help animals of all sizes in America’s Heartland
Photo: Ben Schroeder and Erin Schroeder are stars of the new reality series Heartland Docs, DVM. Photo courtesy of National Geographic / Glass Entertainment Group / Provided by press site with permission.
Heartland Docs, DVM, the new reality series from Nat Geo Wild, is set to premiere on the network Saturday, Jan. 25 at 10 p.m. The show follows the adventures of veterinarians Dr. Erin Schroeder and Dr. Ben Schroeder as they help animals — whether they’re from the farm or from the house — in the local area around Hartington, Nebraska.
Signing up for the series was not an immediate yes. Ben said the couple needed to do some thinking before signing on the dotted line.
“It finally turned out that we said yes, but it took some soul-searching on our part to really get into this,” Ben said in a recent phone interview. “But now that we’ve done it for a little bit, it’s like, oh man, what an experience for us, our kids, our community, our part of the world to have this national exposure.”
Erin and Ben have been practicing veterinary medicine for several years, and they have fallen in love with the community of Hartington, which has approximately 1,500 people.
“It is a rural farming community, lots of families there, young families, people who grew up there,” Erin said. “I grew up in upstate New York and moved there. It’s a really quintessential, slow-moving, rural, midwestern town. Personally I think all those little midwestern towns are best-kept secrets, but it’s a great place to have a family.”
Although the surroundings are quaint and bucolic, the phone calls that come into their clinic are always from left field. They deal with many emergencies, and no two days are exactly alike. One can see this evidence on the show’s premiere episode, dubbed “The Little Practice on the Prairie.”
“We don’t know what the next phone call might be,” Ben said. “We’ve taken care of lots of wildlife. We’ve taken care of exotic pets. Definitely farm animals are our go-to and [also] companion animals like dogs and cats and horses, but it doesn’t matter what happens, we answer the phone and try to do the best we can.”
Erin added: “We always get nervous when we don’t have a lot of things on the schedule because we know Mother Nature has got something up her sleeve. What is going to come in the door next?”
Being in the heart of the United States means that the animals they see have some unique ailments. For example, they have a fair number of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever cases at their clinic. This tick-born illness can prove devastating. Lyme disease is also becoming a reality in their part of the country.
“There’s lots of fence lines, so we also see all sorts of lacerations,” Erin said. “Whenever you put a fence up, there is always something more exciting on the other side of the fence for whatever animal is trying to be contained. It’s crazy. I feel like there isn’t really anything specific, but we’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff.”
Ben pointed to the weather as a major factor in the issues their animals face. For example, this past year Nebraska saw historic flooding, and the rains, of course, greatly impacted the four-legged friends in the local area.
“The weather and the elements really affect our job,” Ben said. “We had a 100-year flood in our neck of the woods this year, and Nebraska was really, really devastated by this flooding. And that was right in the midst of birthing all of our cows and calves. Springtime is not a great time to have a flood, but it did happen to us this year. We’re still dealing with problems that grew from the flood. We live in a beautiful part of the country, but the elements can be relentless at times.”
The two are a team in both their chosen professions and in their personal lives. They truly love working together, and they know where their veterinary strengths lie.
“I probably do a little more in the clinic than Ben,” Erin said. “He’s out in the country 70 percent of his time and 30 in the clinic, and I’m in the clinic 70 and 30 percent in the country. But we’re kind of unique in that we do an awful lot together. We have worked out where each of us has our strong points, and so if it’s my strong point, Ben helps me. And if it’s his, I help him. That’s something that I love. We’re really not apart very much at all.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Heartland Docs, DVM, premieres Saturday, Jan. 25 at 10 p.m. on Nat Geo Wild. Click here for more information.
