Hi! I’m Christina Green, a lifelong animal lover and firm believer in being a forever student. After earning my Veterinary Assistant certification at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, I began working at Carolina Forest Veterinary Hospital in Myrtle Beach, SC. Becoming a senior technician there is my proudest accomplishment. I strive to be someone that our team members can look up to, rely on, and ask questions of. Outside of work, I love hiking, traveling, and tent camping in the mountains with my husband and our five-year-old blue heeler/beagle mix, Keilee. She can be a handful, but give her a tennis ball and plenty of country to explore, and she’s happy as can be!

You’ve loved animals your entire life. But is there a specific experience that really nurtured that love?

I started riding horses when I was around ten years old, and I found a sweet lady who really helped me grow and got me into hunter-jumping. That’s a sport where you have a course of usually eight jumps with fences less than three feet – anything higher is considered show-jumping – that you and your horse must perform together. I started on an ex-racehorse named Shaw. He turned into my heart horse! He was fresh off the track and had never jumped a fence in his life either, so we learned together. We experienced many firsts together, from our first jumps to our first shows. He passed away from old age in 2021, but my love for horses and for the sport continue to this day.

And that love for horses and animals was the inspiration for your career choice – even if you took a winding path to get there…

Yes! I went to Horry-Georgetown Technical College to get my associate degree in criminal justice. I saw it as a step towards becoming an animal control officer. I never really considered the veterinary field because I didn’t think I’d be comfortable in a medical setting. I used to find all the medications, surgeries, and client communication a bit intimidating.

After graduating, however, I needed something to do while I was waiting to be eligible for work in law enforcement. I found the Veterinary Assistant program, and there was no turning back for me! Participating in that program helped grow me into a confident person who is now able to inspire others.

What made the education you received at your local technical college such a dynamic experience?

The amount of hands-on experience I was able to do. Between my criminal justice classes involving photography and blood spatter analysis to the veterinary classes where we brought our animals in to practice on, the experience was so much more than book work.

Also, the professors were all highly knowledgeable, and I loved that they had personal stories they could share with me. The one story I remember most is from Professor Wysong. He always talked about being a forever student, and he practiced what he preached! Here he was teaching us at HGTC during the day, while he’d be bouncing his newborn on his knee at 2 or 3 am, taking a test online to work towards his Master’s degree. I admired his example so much; he showed me that anything is possible if you put forth the effort.

It sounds like the idea of being a forever student really stuck with you.

Yes. In fact, I recently started school – again! – to become a licensed veterinary technician through the Penn Foster Veterinary program.

I love finding new ways to improve myself or the way we as veterinary technicians do things. The world is constantly evolving, and sometimes what we learn is what doesn’t work. But that’s how we change for the better.

Has any one person been particularly influential on your career journey?

Oh, for sure – that would be Brian Ling! He basically raised me from his class at HGTC and is the BEST mentor and teacher. He has over 40 years of veterinary experience, and not only was he one of the first technicians to open Carolina Forest Veterinary Hospital, but he’s also the one who helped me start my career there. He took me under his wing as his protégé to learn inventory and ordering for our hospital, and I am now a senior technician that others look up to because of all the things he taught me.

But it’s his true love for the veterinary field that wins me over every time. Until COVID and subsequent years of civil unrest in Haiti, he visited the country every year to provide veterinary care to the animals there. That’s the kind of compassionate, supportive, big-hearted person that helps others – furry or human – grow and thrive. I cannot say enough good things about him!