Laurie Howarth, veterinarian and founder of Medomak Veterinary Services, stands outside her home, which was the original location of the clinic. Howarth said she was grateful for the trust locals had placed in her over the years to care for their animals and pets. (Molly Rains photo)
Veterinarian Laurie Howarth, who founded Medomak Veterinary Services at her Waldoboro home in 1988, has retired after a nearly 50-year career in veterinary medicine.
“I would just like to thank all the people that trusted me and gave me the opportunity to care for their pets – for some of them, many generations worth of pets,” she said Nov. 26.
Howarth said her interest in veterinary medicine traced back to her childhood in the Midwest.
“All my memories of my childhood involve animals in some way, shape, or form,” she said.
A particularly memorable experience was witnessing the pregnancy of the horse Howarth had as a teen.
“We called the veterinarian the day the foal was born, and I didn’t have to go to school that day,” she recalled. Howarth was fascinated.
“I had a book that showed all the gestational stages of the foal, and that was as exciting to me as the thought of having another horse.”
When Howarth was 14, her family moved from Ohio to South Dakota with their horses in tow. Along the way, they stopped at a farm to rest. The farmer told Howarth that one of the horses at the farm belonged to a young woman studying veterinary medicine at Iowa State University. That detail revealed to Howarth that veterinary medicine was a possibility for her own future, she said.
In the truck the next day, Howarth talked about her dreams with her father, who was encouraging.
“We had a long conversation on the last leg of our journey. My dad said, ‘There’s a woman that’s going to be a veterinarian, so you know it’s possible,’” Howarth said.
Though she also developed interests in art and fashion during high school, Howarth ultimately stuck with her dreams of becoming a veterinarian and earned a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Iowa State University in 1976.
Howarth began her career working at a small animal and horse clinic, in line with her childhood dreams of becoming an equine veterinarian. In 1977, she began working at a clinic in Cape Cod, Mass. It was there Howarth met one of her more memorable clients: a dachshund named Gretchen who belonged to an older woman Howarth knew as Ms. Fitzpatrick.
Though clients sometimes doubted her authority due to her youthful appearance, Howarth said Ms. Fitzpatrick always had faith in her abilities.
“A lot of the time, when I would go into exam rooms, people would ask, ‘Are you the doctor?’” Howarth said. “But Ms. Fitzpatrick, she would call the veterinary clinic and she would say, ‘I want to take Gretchen in to see the doctor.’”
Howarth worked on the cape for nine years, but began to miss more rural life. Her then-husband worked on boats and the pair was attracted to the Midcoast, where they had friends in Damariscotta, Howarth said. Eventually, the couple relocated to Waldoboro concurrent with the birth of their son in 1986.
By 1988, Howarth and her husband had divorced, and Howarth was providing support to other local veterinarians, bringing her young son along on some calls. She wanted to found her own clinic, but knew doing so would take an investment. As it turned out, the money to do so would come through an unexpected act of generosity.
“When (Ms. Fitzpatrick) died, I got a letter from her attorney saying that I had been mentioned in her will. I thought it was just instructions that if she died, Gretchen was to be euthanized and cremated and her ashes sent with Ms. Fitzpatrick’s ashes,” Howarth said.
While that was part of Fitzpatrick’s will, there was more: the woman had left half of her estate to Howarth. The inheritance was enough for Howarth to convert a former wood storage area at her home into a clinic and begin accepting patients at her home.
“I used (the money) to do something that I thought Ms. Fitzpatrick would be proud of,” said Howarth.
The original Medomak Veterinary Services office was small, nestled into two rooms.
“I had to make good use of space. It was very functional,” Howarth said.
At first, Howarth treated horses, sheep, and goats as well as small animals. However, balancing motherhood with emergency veterinary medicine was no small task.
“When I would get an emergency at night, I would have to take my son or else call the neighbor and have them come over and stay, but that was not a practical situation,” she said. To make her practice more sustainable, Howarth switched to small animal care.
Being on call at all hours every day of the year was a fact of life for veterinarians at the time, when emergency clinics were not yet mainstream, said Howarth.
“It was the most trying part of being a veterinarian,” she said.
Eventually, to counteract this, Howarth and 11 other area veterinarians united in the mid-2010s to found an emergency veterinary clinic in Warren, called Midcoast Animal Emergency Clinic.
The founding veterinarians originally staffed the clinic themselves, paying themselves “a pittance,” Howarth said. The clinic would eventually be staffed by its own dedicated team of veterinarians.
Howarth’s own clinic, Medomak Veterinary Services, also grew since its 1988 beginning. For 14 years, Howarth continued to see patients and do surgery from her home; then, in 2002, she moved into the 14 Atlantic Highway (Route 1) building where Medomak Veterinary Services is still located to this day.
Howarth sold the clinic to veterinarian couple Arthur Charles and Bailey Gage in 2017, but continued to work on site, slowly decreasing her on-duty hours by a day or so each year. At the time of her retirement, she was working about one day each week.
Charles called Howarth a veterinary pioneer in the region.
“She’s been a mentor, she’s been a friend,” he said. “To this day, she is an excellent vet and an excellent surgeon, and we will miss her working here greatly.”
Over 48 years as a veterinarian, Howarth said she loved many parts of the career, from connecting with clients, patients, and colleagues to the problem-solving challenge of figuring out difficult cases.
“I really liked science in school, and I like understanding how things work. That’s one of the reasons I like veterinary medicine. I like medicine in general because it’s puzzle-solving, and there’s always new information,” she said.
Howarth said she had grown to particularly enjoy surgery during the early years of her career, a passion she has held on to ever since.
“You feel like you’re actually doing something to make the animal better,” she said. “It’s complete, and you get to see the results. It’s immediate and definite, and you work with your hands.”
The clinic has seen many changes over the years, embracing developments from electronic records to the implementation of ultrasound technology, Howarth said. But other things have remained the same: the clinic has never advertised, relying instead on word-of-mouth and reputation, she said.
Howarth lives with her husband Bill Chapman and several dogs in Waldoboro. In her retirement, she plans to spend more time creating art and being creative. She is a textile and fiber artist, and has converted the space that once housed her in-home clinic to an art studio.
Looking back over her career, Howarth said she was grateful for all the trust her clients placed in her. She has kept all the thank you notes written for her by clients over the years.
Howarth also praised the current staff of Medomak Veterinary Services and said she knew her clinic was in good hands.
“One of the most difficult things about leaving is that I liked the people I worked with,” she said. “It was kind of like a family.”
A reception for Howarth will be held from 4-6 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14, at Medomak Veterinary Services, at 14 Atlantic Highway in Waldoboro. For more information, find Medomak Veterinary Services on Facebook.
