Dr. Cherice Roth Adds Veterinary Voice to Board of Directors
Dr. Cherice Roth joined Seattle Humane’s Board of Directors in December 2023 with the desire to contribute her more than a decade of veterinary experience to this new leadership role and promote technological advancements to improve and increase access to care.
Dr. Roth’s passion for improving access to veterinary care perfectly aligns with Seattle Humane’s mission to promote the human-animal bond by saving and serving pets in need, regardless of age, ability, circumstance, or geography. Our Community Medicine program focuses on breaking down barriers to veterinary care and ensuring pet ownership is a right, not a privilege.
“The first thing is we have to have a kind of shift in this mindset that having a pet is a privilege, when it is fundamental to our survival and to our happiness to allow animals into our lives,” Dr. Roth says, adding there is now more research coming out to support that assertion. “We have real science around those studies; thanks to the Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI), we know that pets decrease our chances of dying by suicide; better control of diabetes and high blood pressure; and decreased incidence of depression – I can’t think of any person that doesn’t deserve those advantages.”
Dr. Roth didn’t have pets growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, and she adopted her first dog while working toward her biochemistry degree at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. She started working with small critters as part of her studies and discovered she had a surgical mind and a talent and love for helping animals. She went on to graduate from the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and then spent time honing her skills with exotic animal medicine and surgery in Australia.
“I love giving a voice to those who don’t have one. It turns out I really love surgery,” Dr. Roth says. “And the science behind the medicine, the science behind the skill set, that fire for serving, was something that appealed to me. And I love critters.”
Dr. Roth is currently the Chief Veterinary Officer of Digital Pet Health for Mars Veterinary Health and Lead Medical Advisor for KeraVetBio. In addition to serving on the board at Seattle Humane, she is on the board of Chief Veterinary Medical Officers (BCVMO) and Wallace Medical Concern.
She has written two children’s books, “What’s a Real Doctor?” and “What Does a Real Doctor Look Like?” The first book affirms that veterinarians are real doctors and encourages children to consider veterinary medicine as a career, and her second book focuses on representation—that children of every ethnicity, race, gender, and ability can grow up to be doctors.
Dr. Roth is impressed every time she visits Seattle Humane’s Schuler Family Medical Center, watching veterinary staff and volunteers in action, and she’s encouraged to see fourth-year veterinary students from Washington State University receiving hands-on experience working on shelter pets through a decade-long partnership. There is a national shortage of veterinary professionals, and that fact, coupled with Dr. Roth’s own experience, helped inspire her to write her children’s books.
“I didn’t meet my first veterinarian until my third year of college, and so any children that kind of interact with the books or can walk through the halls at Seattle Humane already has a leg up on where I was at that age,” Dr. Roth says. “And I think it’s essential for them to start to see veterinary medicine as something that serves them and the animals that we all care about.”
Dr. Roth now surrounds herself with all sorts of animals at her family ranch in Boring, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and sons. Living in harmony with the people at Rothling Ranch are six dogs, pigs, goats, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and a giant tortoise who roams the property when the weather is fair.
“He’s around 160-something pounds, so he’s a big dude, but very friendly, very food-motivated,” Dr. Roth says. “He’s a mainstay with the Roth family, and we’re happy to have him. He’s got so much character and personality.”
