On a cool, wet morning in April, Deb Armstead-Haak received a note from the Humane Society of Minnesota asking for her help. A three-month-old Labrador puppy named Jack had been surrendered to the shelter and couldn’t open his mouth more than a crack. 

“Can we get this guy in and find out what is going on with him?” they asked.

Armstead-Haak has received hundreds of calls like this one over the last 14 years. Since the project was started in 2012, Armstead-Haak has overseen patient coordination for the University of Minnesota (UMN) Veterinary Medical Center Shelter & Rescue Animal Fund. The fund helps animals awaiting adoption access critical veterinary care. 

Since its inception, the VMC Shelter & Rescue Animal Fund has secured care for 183 animals—including Jack, who needed jaw surgery—with the help of more than $300,000 in donor gifts. The program has funded leg surgery for a six-month-old American Staffordshire terrier-pit bull puppy and helped a donkey get surgery and treatment for multiple infections. It’s made more heart surgeries possible than Armstead-Haak can remember.

“I’m really proud of the job that I’ve done being an advocate,” she says. “When the fund was new, we could only partially fund a lot of procedures. But as we’ve grown, we’ve been able to cover the full cost of a lot of treatments.”

Armstead-Haak started working in human medicine for UMN in 1994. As a new patient coordinator, she worked with 24 different doctors who specialized in different aspects of orthopedic surgery. When the VMC opened up a brand new referral center position in 2000, a colleague told Armstead-Haak she would be perfect for it. 

The VMC team agreed, and Armstead-Haak transferred her skills to veterinary medicine. For the first six years, she fielded calls from outside clinicians making patient referrals to the VMC. 

“In a hospital as big as ours, with so many specialties, you have to have some problem-solving skills—do we try dentistry first or go right to surgery?” she says. 

Later, when faculty at the VMC identified a need for a patient-client advocate, Robert Novo, then-medical-director for the VMC, tapped Armstead-Haak for the role. That person would need to be able to answer whatever questions came up, from billing to specifics about which procedures their pet would need. 

“They said, ‘You know everyone in the hospital and are good at what you do,’” Armstead-Haak remembers. “I thought, ‘I am going to make this the best patient-client advocacy ever.’ And I did.”

In 2012, when faculty at the VMC gathered the first sum of money for the Shelter & Rescue Animal Fund, Armstead-Haak coordinated a small board of clinicians and technicians from across the hospital. Together, they determined which cases the fund could help. 

“I’ve always made it a point to consider how I can be the best steward of this money. The goal has always been to be able to find a way to pay for care for rescues that may be difficult to afford otherwise,” she says.

Armstead-Haak is the only person on that inaugural team still working for the fund. In July, it will be her turn to retire. Her legacy will continue with the fund, which has been able to help more patients every year. 

“I value the relationships that I've developed over the years with the rescues that we've been able to help,” she says. “I will miss the collaboration and wonderful teamwork we've shared together.”