New hospitalist focuses on improving quality of life for pets in cancer treatment

Quality of life is Jonel Nightingale’s focus. It has been in her own life and career, and it is for the animal patients and their human families that she serves.

Nightingale DVM ’12 is the new hospitalist at the Animal Cancer Care and Research Center in Roanoke. 

Her role is to become intimately familiar with every pet that comes through the doors, to consult closely with each pet’s owners through every step of their medical journey at the cancer center, and to help deal with any and all issues of health and comfort that arise either because of or apart from each pet’s cancer treatments.

“They come here as cancer patients, but each pet is an entire being,” Nightingale said. 

“The way that I think of my job as a hospitalist is I have to look at the entire patient,” Nightingale explained. “Because they come here with a diagnosis. And when does cancer most often happen? Cancer happens when the patient is generally older. So what else is going on? Are they diabetic? Do they have a history of skin allergies? Do they have musculoskeletal disease that needs pain management? 

“Our goal here is quality of life. What we do here is treat cancer to ensure quality time. So, if there's some other huge life-limiting, quality-of-life-affecting problem, it's my job to see if I can fix it.”

Nightingale, also serving as an assistant professor of practice in medical oncology within the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, has taken a winding road in her career, shifting course along the way as she realized the need for new horizons and opportunities.

Growing up in Maryland, Nightingale knew she had an interest in animals and was inclined toward veterinary medicine. She went to college at Frostburg State University. 

“I went in with the plan of being pre-vet and then going to vet school, but I ended up switching to psychology because I wasn't ready,” Nightingale said “So I graduated with a psychology degree, then got a job, not doing anything with psychology, and realized that I did really still want to work with animals. That's what I wanted to do.”

So Nightingale returned to Frostburg State for some prerequisite courses, applied to three veterinary colleges, and got accepted by the veterinary college at Virginia Tech in 2008.

“The four years at Virginia Tech were the best four years of my life,” Nightingale said. “I made the best friends I've ever had. They're still the best friends I've ever had.”

By contrast, a subsequent internship year at the University of Florida was “the hardest year of my life,” but “they taught me so much.” 

She returned to the New River Valley and became an associate veterinarian at Community Animal Hospital in Dublin for the next dozen years, handling the medical side of the clinic’s cases while her supervising veterinarian was the chief surgeon.

After so many years in private practice, she realized it was time to seek a new opportunity, and she found that at the animal cancer center.

But leaving the animal hospital was not easy for Nightingale.

“It was hard,” Nightingale said. “I watched so many of my patients grow from puppy to now. I built really good relationships with my clients, and I miss them so much. And that was the hardest part, no longer seeing the clients who had trusted me. They helped me grow, they helped me become this doctor I am, because they trusted me.” 

Now, Nightingale is investing her energy, empathy, and professional experience in new clients and patients she will also grow close to. Knowing that many animals in her care will face trying journeys and dire diagnoses, she is realistic in her focus on improving their quality of life.

“I can't fix the cancer, but maybe I can beat it back and get this other thing under control,” Nightingale said. “And now your pet has six months of really good life, and that's six months more than you were going to have. It's never enough, right? I mean, let's be honest, we want our pets to live to be 75. But if I can make those six months the best six months possible, then I did my job.”