She lives with a husband, son, two birds and a cat and, other than the
cat wanting everyone to know she's the most beautiful of God's creations
and she's smarter than the birds, all five have requested that their
privacy be respected.  (The birds disagree with both claims.)  What about
ferrets?  "All my pet ferrets are vicarious through my extended family of
clients," and Petra Bergman, D.V.M., very Forest Gump-like, departs the
topic of her family.  That's all I got to say about that!
 
Since the age of eight, she wanted to be just like her hero, author
and zoologist Gerald Durrell.  Dr. Bergman decided then to be a zoo
veterinarian, but in her late teens the discovery of a severe hay allergy
made that occupation impossible.  She began working in veterinary clinics
at the age of fifteen and soon realized there was a tremendous need for
exotic pet care in the private sector.  Few veterinarians knew their
special needs and diseases so these pets were not being properly
serviced.
 
"I received my Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
degrees from the University of Guelph, and have been practicing exotic
pet medicine ever since.  At the time I graduated, 1984, ferrets were
first starting to make the scene as house pets and pale, unspayed female
ferrets were a regular occurrence.  I opened my own exotics practice, the
Animal Hospital of High Park, in 1986, and spaying and neutering ferrets,
nutritional counseling, and removing foreign bodies were daily events.
Since then the practice has achieved the distinction of performing more
adrenalectomies than any other practice in the province."
 
A ferret was presented with severe rectal stricture due to a badly
performed descenting at another hospital.  We resected the distal colon
and reconnected it with the anus, and the ferret was even continent
afterwards.  This sounds easy, but let me assure you it is not.  There
is very little room to work in the pelvic canal of a ferret, and the
distal colon is firmly secured in there.  To get in, free the colon
without tearing it, and shift it down for reattachment was a several
hour surgery involving no breathing on the part of the surgeons.
 
One of the benefits of working with animals is that there is no end to
the unexpected.  Dr. Burgman is full of storeiis about her days.  Ask her
to tell you about Debbie the Wonder Chicken, a house pet who ate all the
snap fasteners one day and required a proventriculotomy.  Or, the guinea
pigs Minimus, Midimus, and Maximus, who liked to play leapfrog, resulting
in corneal abrasions for Maximus.  Then there was the four foot long
caiman the owner thought was tame but actually wouldn't bite because he
had trouble opening his mouth due to hypocalcemia.  And, who couldn't
love Rio, the Scarlet macaw, was madly in love with her dashing
twenty-something South American owner, but would rip her feathers out in
a fit of passion when he would bring home another woman.
 
In her spare time, Dr. Bergman enjoys gardening, watercolours and
traveling around the world.  She also found time to enjoy Atlas Shrugged,
Groundhog Day, Stuart Smalley Saves his Family.  And, let's not forget
the Barenaked Ladies.  If she could find a spare 24 hours, she would like
to share it with Deepak Chopra.  "I know no one else who can shift your
paradigms and make the impossible seem possible in such an intelligent
yet playful way."
 
Dr. Bergman would like to be remembered as the first Canadian to be
board-certified in avian medicine; as an important author and contributor
to exotic pet medicine around the planet; as a good wife, mother, and
friend and a heck of a lot of fun at parties.  Check out her webpage at
http://www.animalhospitalhighpark.com and her contribution to the party
scene at Ferret Aid 2006 in June.
 
Animal Hospital of High Park
3194 Dundas St. West Toronto, Ontario M6P 2A3
416 763-4200
[Posted in FML issue 5232]