When Dr. Alyssa Comroe was named Chief Executive Officer of Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, she joined a growing group of shelter veterinarians stepping into top leadership roles at some of the nation’s most influential animal welfare organizations.
For Dr. Comroe, the appointment wasn’t a departure from shelter medicine. It was a continuation of it.
“Being able to make a bigger impact is what keeps me coming to work every day,” she said. “I saw what I could do with my third of the organization, and I thought, what could I do with the whole thing?”
That perspective – that shelter medicine is about far more than medicine alone – is one Dr. Comroe developed years earlier as a student in the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine’s Professional Certificate in Shelter Medicine program.
Seeing the Whole Shelter
Dr. Comroe’s path to veterinary medicine began long before veterinary school.
Originally from New Jersey, she worked as a veterinary receptionist and assistant as a teenager and later attended the University of Miami, where she launched a trap-neuter-return program for community cats on campus after recognizing the need for a more humane approach to managing the campus cat population. The project connected her with Miami-Dade Animal Services and introduced her to animal sheltering on a larger scale.
After graduation, while pursuing a Master of Public Health degree, she accepted a position at Miami-Dade Animal Services. There, she witnessed firsthand the complexities of operating one of the nation’s busiest shelters, including a distemper outbreak that brought UF Shelter Medicine faculty Dr. Julie Levy and Dr. Cynda Crawford to the shelter.
“I got to meet them as they were teaching all of us what to do with this outbreak,” Dr. Comroe recalled. “At that time, I’d already been accepted to UF, so I was absolutely starstruck.”
By the time she arrived in Gainesville, shelter medicine had become more than an interest. It had become a calling.
“After my experience working at an animal shelter, I was excited to see that sheltering could be evidence-based,” she said. “I wanted to learn what best practice looked like.”
The Professional Certificate in Shelter Medicine provided exactly that foundation. While traditional veterinary education teaches medicine and surgery, Dr. Comroe found that shelter medicine training offered something broader: a deep understanding of how animal shelters function as organizations.
“The shelter medicine and surgery that you learn as part of your normal veterinary curriculum doesn’t teach you the inner workings of a shelter,” she said. “The certificate program gave me a well-rounded education and perspective in animal sheltering and allowed me to be more than a spay/neuter surgeon or a diagnostician.”
More Than Medicine
That distinction would prove pivotal throughout her career.
Following graduation, Dr. Comroe worked as a shelter veterinarian at Jacksonville Animal Care and Protective Services before joining the faculty at Kansas State University. There, she discovered that the operational knowledge she had gained through shelter medicine training was just as valuable as her medical expertise.
“I was asked to consult on operations at our shelter partners all the time,” she said.
Rather than focusing solely on disease management or surgery, she found herself advising shelters on everything from kennel design to workflow, population management, and organizational practices.
“I was not just an expert on taking students to do spay/neuter or handling a kitten with ringworm,” she said. “I was an expert on things like your kennels aren’t set up correctly; let’s set them up like this instead. Or how to implement playgroups and appropriate enrichment.”
Those experiences reinforced a lesson she believes is often overlooked outside the specialty.
“What makes a shelter veterinarian a leader is when they take a step back from only looking at the medicine and can look at the entire operation.”
A Different Kind of Veterinary Education
Dr. Comroe believes formal shelter medicine training equips veterinarians with a perspective that is uncommon in both veterinary medicine and animal welfare.
“If you are trying to hire somebody with a formal shelter medicine education, you’re looking for somebody who’s going to be a leader in more than just medicine, surgery, and vaccine protocols,” she said. “They are set up to teach everyone across the shelter about best practices in operations.”
That systems-level perspective has become increasingly important as shelters grapple with challenges that extend beyond animal health alone, including staffing shortages, operational efficiency, access to care, community engagement, and capacity for care.
Today, shelter veterinarians are helping shape policies, lead organizations, and develop innovative solutions to some of animal welfare’s most pressing problems.
“I think the future of animal welfare is shelter veterinarians,” Dr. Comroe said. “The future is having people who not only care, but who have the education and perspective to keep solving these difficult problems.”
Looking Forward
As CEO of Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, Dr. Comroe now oversees every aspect of the organization, from operations and development to community programs and strategic planning.
Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, located in West Palm Beach, Florida, is one of the largest and most influential animal welfare organizations in the Southeast. In fiscal year 2025, the organization cared for 5,437 animals while achieving an impressive 97% live outcome rate.
In addition to pet adoption services, Peggy Adams operates a low-cost wellness and spay/neuter clinic, a trap-neuter-return program, a pet food bank, and behavior consultation and training services. The organization also serves as a training site for veterinary students through its shelter medicine externship program and hosts three annual TNR Spay Days, during which more than 500 community cats are sterilized in a single day.
Dr. Comroe sees a direct line between her current role and the shelter medicine training she received as a student. In fact, she hopes more shelter veterinarians will consider leadership positions.
“If leadership is something you’ve ever considered, go for it,” she said. “We need more veterinarians as leaders in this field.”
For students considering shelter medicine today, her career offers a powerful example of what the specialty can become.
Shelter medicine remains rooted in animal care, surgery, disease prevention, and population health. But as Dr. Comroe’s journey demonstrates, it is also a field that prepares veterinarians to think strategically, solve complex organizational problems, and lead.
And increasingly, those skills are shaping the future of animal welfare.