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]