Meet the StaffMelinda WhitmanDale City Animal Hospital

One of the most important members of our staff is one that you will probably never meet. She is Melinda Whitman, our night nurse.

She works from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. looking after our boarders and our surgical and hospitalized patients. Our hospital is one of the few nonemergency hospitals in the area that has a night nurse.

Melinda’s job is particularly challenging because she works alone. She has to pull blood, re-bandage catheters, give injections, monitor a patient’s vital statistics, and many other things. Sometimes she has to treat patients that do not feel well and are not always “cooperative”. She is authorized to contact the doctors immediately any time a patient is having serious difficulties.

However, Melinda says she enjoys caring for the animals and likes working alone. Each night is different and she never knows what type of cases she will find when she comes in. She likes playing classical music for herself and the patients each night.

Melinda was born in Pennsylvania, spent most of her life in Chesapeake, VA, and then settled in Northern Virginia. She came to this area while in the Army in 1984. She retired from the Army as a Master Sergeant after spending 21½ years on active duty. She worked as a veterinary assistant for three years at several animal hospitals in the Alexandria area prior to coming here about
five years ago.

She has 7 cats, all of them strays that she rescued. Other interests include playing trumpet and percussion and singing in the choir at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

It should be comforting to know that if your pet has to spend the night with us, it will not be alone. Melinda will be taking
good care of it.