What It Takes to Save a Life: A Veterinarian's Quest for Healing and Hope - Paperback

by Kwane Stewart (Author)

From Dr. Kwane Stewart, CNN's Hero of the Year for 2023.

Mountains Beyond Mountains meets Tattoos On the Heart in this unforgettable, powerful, and stunningly-told memoir of a struggling veterinarian saving animals and humans on the streets of California - and how he discovered what bonds all living creatures.

Dr. Kwane Stewart was questioning his career as a veterinarian when he saw a homeless man with a flea-infested dog outside of a convenience store. In a moment of spontaneous generosity, he offered to examine the dog and treat him for free. It was the first step in a now nine-year journey that has taken Dr. Kwane from Skid Row to San Francisco and beyond to care for pets and their humans who are living on the streets, a journey that would redefine the powerful human-animal bond.

In What It Takes to Save a Life, Dr. Kwane shows how our four-legged, feathered, scaled, and swimming family members--these dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, and other animals that live side by side with us--provide more than companionship. They offer essential love, hope, and a sense of security.

Written with striking honesty and rich detail, Dr. Kwane looks back on his childhood, how he discovered his appreciation for animals and his calling, and offers a frank assessment of the mental health crisis in veterinary medicine today, where compassion fatigue, burnout, and suicide are facts of life. Full of warm and inspiring stories of human-animal relationships, this powerful and eye-opening book is a reminder that we are all members of a wider family. It is also a clarion call for each of us to help those in need--especially our most vulnerable brothers and sisters--and the animals who are their families. Wise and warm, Dr. Stewart's uplifting nonfiction story is a reminder that one life can make an immeasurable difference.

This unforgettable veterinarian memoir is a testament to second chances--for animals and people alike.

• The Street Vet: Follow Dr. Kwane from Skid Row to San Francisco as he provides critical, free care to the pets of the unhoused, discovering hope on the streets of California.
• Compassion Fatigue: An unflinching look at the burnout, depression, and mental health challenges facing the veterinary community, told from a place of raw honesty and experience.
• Inspirational Memoir: The moving, true story of how a man on the brink of leaving his profession found his true calling by helping the most vulnerable animals and their humans.
• Second Chances: A powerful reminder that it's never too late to find a new purpose, and that saving an animal can sometimes be the first step to saving yourself.