Cather­ine Hagan (Com­par­a­tive Med­i­cine, UW), “Com­pas­sion Fatigue: Work­ing with Ani­mals in Research and Other Settings”

• Feb­ru­ary 10, 12:00–2:00, Sav­ery 408

 Abstract: A crit­i­cal aspect of ani­mal wel­fare is tak­ing care of the peo­ple who care for ani­mals. This work­shop will explore the issue of com­pas­sion fatigue and burnout in peo­ple work­ing with ani­mals. The pri­mary con­text to be dis­cussed is peo­ple work­ing with ani­mals in research. How­ever, the dis­cus­sion may touch on other set­tings, such as cap­tive ani­mals in zoos, or shel­ter work. This is not a dis­cus­sion about whether or not it is appro­pri­ate for ani­mals to be used in such cir­cum­stances. While a dis­cus­sion of alter­na­tives to ani­mal use is impor­tant, this work­shop is con­cerned with the urgency of min­i­miz­ing ani­mal suf­fer­ing for those ani­mals being used at this moment. Accord­ingly, we will focus on explor­ing ideas and strate­gies for sup­port­ing peo­ple whose jobs involve dif­fi­cult and emo­tion­ally demand­ing aspects of ani­mal care.

Cather­ine Hagan is an Act­ing Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Com­par­a­tive Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton. She received a B.S. degree in Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, a D.V.M. from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis, and a Ph.D. in Mol­e­c­u­lar and Cel­lu­lar Biol­ogy from the Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton, Seat­tle. She com­pleted a res­i­dency at UW in lab­o­ra­tory ani­mal med­i­cine and com­par­a­tive pathol­ogy in 2008. She pro­vides pathol­ogy sup­port in the UW Vet­eri­nary Diag­nos­tic Lab and her research explores stress, sero­tonin, and brain innate immunity.