When you bring your pet to Stone Ridge Veterinary Medical Center at Willis, you may be coming for our veterinarians’ expertise, exotic pet knowledge, or advanced surgical and specialty skills, or our team’s kind and caring personalities. If your furry pal is dragging you into our hospital for their appointment, there’s a good chance your pooch is rushing to see one of their favorite certified veterinary assistants, Holly McNew. Delighted by Holly’s love and snuggles, all her patients are keen to come back to our hospital, because Holly’s special brand of TLC has made them so comfortable in our veterinary setting.

How does a certified veterinary assistant care for my pet?

While veterinary assistants are not required to become certified, pursuing certification demonstrates an extra level of dedication to patient care. Holly is currently a certified veterinary assistant working toward veterinary technician status, devoted to learning as much as she can to better serve her furry patients.  She performs a wide variety of tasks designed to keep her patients happy, relaxed, and comfortable, and assists our veterinarians and veterinary technicians. Some of the ways Holly cares for your furry pal include:

  • Preparing exam rooms for appointments
  • Ensuring surgical instruments and supplies are sterile
  • Setting up surgical suites
  • Assisting with exams, diagnostic testing, and surgeries
  • Obtaining blood, urine, and fecal samples
  • Taking and processing X-rays
  • Providing personalized nursing care
  • Administering medications, food, water, and other essentials
  • Recording vital signs, comfort level, and potential issues, alerting our veterinarians of subtle changes in our patients
  • Performing clerical duties, such as entering notes, answering phones, and answering client questions

As you can tell, Holly is always extremely busy, but she’s never too busy to stop for a quick pat, a treat, or a snuggle with your furry pal, to help them relax and feel comfortable here.

Holly’s highlights

Holly is an important team member, and we want to help you get to know our superstar assistant better. Let’s dive into Holly’s background, and see how she found her career home at Stone Ridge Veterinary Medical Center at Willis. 

Holly’s veterinary background

Born and raised in Palestine, Texas, Hollyann McNew moved all around the Lone Star State before settling in Willis. She attended Sam Houston State University (SHSU), where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in animal science, with a minor in wildlife management. She had loved veterinary medicine since she was a child, when she played veterinarian with her Beanie Babies, and volunteering as an animal care specialist at the Abilene Zoo had pushed her to go back to school to complete her degree. Right before graduating from SHSU, she was hired by Stone Ridge Veterinary Medical Center at Willis, not only for her animal caretaking skills and obvious love for pets, but also for her ability to make Mandy, our hiring manager, laugh during her interview. Veterinary medicine is a stressful field often fraught with high emotions, and the ability to defuse tensions and inject happiness into a heartbreaking day is an excellent skill for our team. 

As Holly learns and grows along her veterinary technician path, she considers herself fortunate to be in such an intriguing field. Her favorite part of her job is learning the hidden mysteries of medicine, especially animal medicine, since discovering your patient’s problems, when they cannot speak the same language, can be particularly challenging. Pathology, and how cells can help unravel mysteries, has also piqued her interest.

Cuddling her feline patients is another favorite part of Holly’s job. As a cat person, she’d love to share her home with a feline friend or two, but because of her allergic husband, she gets her kitty fixes at our hospital. 

Holly’s home life

Outside of the hospital, Holly is equally busy. She is married, with three children who joyfully command her free time, and two four-legged children—Kiera, a 3-year-old shepherd mix, and Lacey, a white pitbull mix. The family all enjoy outdoor activities, whether it’s hiking, fishing, shooting, or horseback riding. Holly also has musical and performing talents—she is the family’s star singer and dancer, with a background in dance from age 3 to college, and her role in a praise and worship team at an Abilene church. 

In the future, Holly would love to visit Australia with her family, as she is a big Steve Irwin family fan. She’d also like to see the aurora borealis, and travel to Africa and across the world, so long as she doesn’t have to scale any heights or look out a plane window. Her biggest fear is heights, and she gets shaky when climbing ladders, yet she loves roller coasters.

When visiting Stone Ridge Veterinary Medical Center at Willis, you may find Holly singing and dancing with your furry pal, snuggling your scared kitty, or devoting her lunch break to comforting a sick patient. Nowhere else will you find a more dedicated team to your pet’s health and well-being than right here at Stone Ridge. 

Is your four-legged friend begging you for a visit with Holly? Give us a call to schedule their annual wellness exam and a snuggle session with our superstar assistant.