Lillie Davis, DVM, DACVIM (Oncology), became a veterinary oncologist through a long sequence of study and clinical training: Cornell University, a small-animal internship at Purdue, a three-year oncology residency back at Cornell, and board certification in 2018. Her June 2021 AAHA essay, “A Dream Filled with Challenges: The Lonely Road to Becoming a Black Veterinary Specialist”, is also an account of what that path felt like as a Black veterinarian. Davis writes about housing insecurity and family hardship, racial isolation in veterinary school and specialist workplaces, the mentors and allies who helped her continue, and the cost of education that can keep talented people out of the profession.
How Lillie Davis became a veterinary oncologist
Davis’s story begins with two interests that reinforced each other: a love of animals and a fascination with science. As a teenager, volunteering at the ASPCA turned those interests into a possible career. The experience gave her a practical view of animal care and helped her imagine herself as a veterinarian rather than treating veterinary medicine as an abstract ambition.
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She grew up in Staten Island and the Bronx and describes housing insecurity and other family hardships. Mentors in elementary school and high school helped her become a determined student. Their encouragement mattered because reaching veterinary school required her to keep aiming at a highly competitive and expensive profession while her family was dealing with instability. Davis connects that early support directly to her aspiration to attend Cornell and become a veterinarian.
Her training timeline
| Stage | Institution or credential | Timing and significance |
|---|---|---|
| Undergraduate study | Cornell University | Graduated in 2009; built the academic foundation for veterinary school. |
| Veterinary degree | Cornell University | Earned her veterinary degree in 2014. |
| Small-animal rotating internship | Purdue University | One-year internship, completed in 2015, providing broad clinical experience after veterinary school. |
| Medical oncology residency | Cornell University | Three-year residency in veterinary medical oncology. |
| Specialty credential | American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Oncology | Became board certified in oncology in 2018. |
This sequence is Davis’s own route, not a promise that every veterinary specialist will follow the same institutions or dates. It shows why the word “specialist” represents years beyond an undergraduate degree: veterinary school, supervised clinical training, focused residency work, and specialty certification.
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What made the path lonely
At Cornell’s veterinary school, Davis realized that she was the only Black person in her class. That moment changed how she experienced ordinary academic spaces. Instead of assuming that someone else shared her background, she had to notice the absence of Black classmates and carry the awareness of being visibly different through lectures, clinical rotations, and social settings.
She later describes looking across conference crowds for another Black veterinary specialist. The search was not a one-time reaction to a particular meeting; it became a way she navigated professional gatherings. In workplaces, she says she could be the only Black veterinarian or the only person of color. She also writes about microaggressions and about uncertainty over how clients perceived her. These are Davis’s reported experiences, not a claim that every Black veterinarian has the same encounters.
“The feeling of being aware that there are few Black veterinarians in this professional space is ever-present.”
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Her description is important because isolation can exist even when no single incident appears dramatic. A conference may contain hundreds of people, yet the lack of racial representation can still be conspicuous. A clinical team may be supportive in some respects while leaving one person to absorb assumptions, awkward questions, or dismissive comments alone. Davis presents that cumulative awareness as part of the emotional labor of building a specialist career.
Veterinary school, conferences and client interactions
- In school: Davis recognized that she was the only Black student in her veterinary class, making representation an everyday concern rather than an occasional observation.
- At professional meetings: she scanned crowds hoping to find another Black veterinary specialist, a habit that illustrates how rare representation felt to her.
- At work: she describes loneliness, microaggressions and uncertainty about clients’ perceptions while practicing as a Black veterinarian.
Davis does not reduce her career to those experiences. She also writes about the family members, mentors, colleagues and friends who helped her persist. Holding both realities together—professional achievement and recurring isolation—is central to understanding her essay.
How V.O.I.C.E. gave her a way to respond
During veterinary school, Davis joined Veterinary Students as One in Culture and Ethnicity, known as V.O.I.C.E. She led the Cornell chapter and served as the organization’s national communications co-chair from 2011 to 2012. Those roles gave her a platform to build community and address representation rather than quietly accepting isolation as inevitable.
Student organizations cannot remove every structural barrier, but they can make it easier for students from underrepresented backgrounds to find peers, share practical advice and see leadership modeled by people who understand their experiences. Davis’s involvement also shows that representation is not only about the number of people in a classroom. It includes who organizes, communicates, mentors and creates space for others.
Her account does not present V.O.I.C.E. as a substitute for institutional change. Instead, it is one example of how students can create connection while larger systems catch up. For someone considering veterinary school, a cultural or affinity organization may become an important source of belonging alongside formal academic advising.
The mentors and allies who helped her continue
Davis credits support from her family and professional relationships, as well as mentorship, with helping her cope with difficult moments. Early teachers encouraged her when her home life was unstable. Later mentors helped her navigate education and specialist training. Those relationships did more than offer reassurance: they helped sustain a demanding goal over many years.
She also emphasizes the role of White allies who used their voices. An ally, in her account, is not someone who privately agrees that discrimination is wrong but remains silent in the moment. Speaking up can challenge a microaggression, question an exclusionary practice or make it clear that a Black colleague should not have to carry the burden of responding alone.
Davis calls on allies to continue using their voices and on Black veterinarians to have a platform to tell their stories. The two requests are connected. Allies can help change the conditions that produce isolation, while first-person accounts make that isolation visible to people who may never experience it themselves.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsWhy affordability affects who can become a veterinarian
Davis links representation to the price of education. For people raised in poverty, the prospect of accumulating thousands of dollars in student-loan debt can make veterinary medicine seem unreachable before an application is submitted. The challenge is not only tuition. A student must also absorb living costs, application expenses and years of training before earning a specialist’s income.
“Education for veterinary personnel needs to be more affordable overall before this career path can become more accessible to minorities.”
Her point is about access to the entire pipeline. A student may have the grades, scientific curiosity and commitment to care for animals, yet still decide that the financial risk is too high. When cost filters out people from lower-income families, the profession loses potential veterinarians before they can reach veterinary school, internships or residencies.
Making education more affordable would not, by itself, solve every representation problem. Students also need mentoring, welcoming learning environments, transparent pathways into specialty training and workplaces where they can practice without being isolated. Davis’s argument is that affordability is a necessary starting condition: without it, many capable students cannot enter the path at all.
What the available workforce figure does—and does not—show
Davis’s AAHA essay attributes a 2017 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figure stating that approximately 2% of the U.S. veterinary workforce was Black. That is a historical statistic reported in the 2021 essay, not a current estimate. The article does not provide the underlying BLS table or a newer percentage, so it should not be used to describe the workforce in 2026.
The figure supplies context for Davis’s sense of isolation, but it cannot measure every part of representation. It does not tell us how many Black veterinarians are specialists, where they practice, how students identify, or whether representation has changed since 2017. The most defensible conclusion is narrower: when Davis wrote about searching for another Black specialist and being alone in workplaces, she was describing an experience consistent with a profession that had very low Black representation in the historical figure she cited.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What her career path means for someone considering veterinary specialty
Davis’s journey can help a prospective student understand the sequence and the decisions involved without turning her biography into a universal checklist. Her route included the following stages:
- Build a scientific and animal-care foundation. Davis’s interest began with animals and science and became concrete through teenage volunteering at the ASPCA.
- Complete undergraduate preparation. She attended Cornell as an undergraduate and graduated in 2009.
- Earn the veterinary degree. She remained at Cornell for veterinary school and graduated in 2014.
- Develop broad clinical experience. She completed a one-year small-animal rotating internship at Purdue in 2015.
- Commit to a specialty. She returned to Cornell for a three-year medical oncology residency, concentrating on cancer care in animals.
- Obtain specialty certification. She became board certified by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in Oncology in 2018.
The timeline also shows why persistence and planning matter. Davis spent at least nine years moving from the end of undergraduate study to board certification, while her total educational path began earlier and included the veterinary degree itself. The exact length and sequence will vary by person, specialty and available training position. Her experience demonstrates the commitment required, not a guaranteed timetable.
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Questions to ask before committing to the route
- Can you identify mentors who understand veterinary school, internship applications and specialty residency decisions?
- What scholarships, grants, loan-repayment programs or lower-cost educational options are available to you?
- Which student organizations or professional networks could provide community and practical guidance?
- How does a prospective program respond when students report bias or microaggressions?
- What support exists for housing, transportation and living expenses during full-time clinical training?
These questions do not eliminate the financial or emotional demands Davis describes, but asking them early can reveal whether a program offers meaningful support rather than expecting students to manage every obstacle privately.
Why telling this story matters
Davis’s essay is a first-person account, not a survey of all Black veterinarians. Its value lies in the precision of what she remembers: the pride of reaching Cornell after hardship, the shock of being the only Black student in her class, the search for representation at conferences, the loneliness of some workplaces, and the relationships that made persistence possible.
Her story also widens the definition of professional success. Board certification in oncology is a major achievement, but Davis argues that the profession must ask who can afford to enter, who feels welcome after entering and who is given a platform to speak. A veterinary field that wants broader representation must address education costs, support students and employees, challenge bias when it appears and make room for Black veterinarians’ own accounts.
“It is a lonely experience being the only Black veterinarian, and sometimes the only person of color, in my workspace.”
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Read in full, Davis’s journey is neither a simple inspirational story nor an indictment of every colleague she encountered. It is a record of determination shaped by hardship, professional excellence shaped by mentorship, and isolation that should not be treated as the price of belonging. Her call is practical: make veterinary education more affordable, have allies speak up, and ensure Black veterinarians can tell their stories where the profession will hear them.
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