Spotlight on

Patricia Fritz, D.V.M.
Principal Investigator, Charles River Laboratories

Spotlight Archive

Dr. Patricia Fritz really enjoys her job. She gets to work with animals, which she clearly loves, and she has a great staff of whom she is proud. And, being a part-time professional, Dr. Fritz also has the best of both worlds—a challenging career and time to enjoy her three daughters and her farm.

Dr. Fritz is principal investigator for the Animal Production Area (APA) contract, which is held by Charles River Laboratories (CRL). She has been serving in this management position for the past 11 years and feels lucky to have found such a great position. While growing up, Dr. Fritz had a very strong interest in animals. "When I was a kid, we were always picking up stray animals—I was very animal-oriented," she recalls. In addition to cats, dogs, and goats, Dr. Fritz also raised a pet squirrel and, at one point, she even had a pet woodchuck! She still keeps lots of animals at home; in fact, she lives on a small farm where she raises poultry and sheep and enjoys riding her beloved horses.

An Interest in Animals and Science

Although Dr. Fritz has always loved working with animals, she didn't actually decide to go into veterinary science until after her second year of college. "I liked science in high school, but in college is when I really became fascinated with the physiology and biology," she says. Because she likes both science and animals, veterinary medicine seemed like the natural career choice. Although getting through veterinary school was hard, Dr. Fritz really enjoyed it. "It is very hard, because you are not just learning one species, you are learning about all species," she recalls, adding, "It is a much broader spectrum than human medicine." It was also tough physical work. "My husband and I worked in bovine practice for one year and, out of that one year, we had one day off," she adds. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School, Dr. Fritz and her husband worked in private practice for a couple years in upstate New York, where she worked mainly with large animals such as cattle and horses.

Dr. Fritz began her career in laboratory animal medicine while working for the U.S. military. "That is where I got a lot of my training, from military programs," says Dr. Fritz. "My husband and I were in private practice—he is a vet too—and we were looking for something different; the military offered to send us on a tour to Germany as military veterinarians, which we accepted." Their tour in Germany was wonderful. "It was fantastic, I loved it," she recalls with enthusiasm.

At the end of this tour, Dr. Fritz decided to enter the Army's Laboratory Animal Medicine Preceptor Program, a four-year "on-the-job" training program at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) here at Ft. Detrick. Many of the senior military veterinarians that she worked with were very helpful in giving her guidance during this training period. Dr. Fritz was then selected to go to Hershey Medical Center (Penn State), where she received her M.S. in laboratory animal science. She subsequently took her specialty boards in laboratory animal medicine and came back to work here at Ft. Detrick as assistant head of USAMRIID's Laboratory Animal Program.

After serving in the military for 10 years, her husband decided to accept a job in Alberta, Canada, so they moved up north for a couple of years. During this time, Dr. Fritz did some veterinary consulting work with the Canadian Council on Animal Care and cared for her first two daughters. Hoping to move back to the Frederick area, Dr. Fritz began contacting some of the people she had worked for previously here at Ft. Detrick. In 1994, Dr. Bill White (CRL) contacted her about the upcoming bid on the Animal Production Area (APA) contract, which CRL subsequently won. Because she wanted to continue to spend time with her daughters, she was really looking for a part-time position. The principal investigator position under the APA contract was just such a position, so this turned out to be an ideal situation both for Dr. Fritz and for CRL. She credits CRL with being very understanding about her part-time requirements. "It gives me a flexible schedule, so if I can't work on a Tuesday because a child is sick, then I can work that Wednesday; it works out really well family-wise," she says.

Ensuring Animal Health and Safety

APA's mission is to supply pathogen-free, genetically pure mice and rats to NCI, NIH, and NIH grantees both in the U.S. and around the world. "We sell over 600,000 animals each year," she explains. Biosecurity, animal health, genetic purity, and employee training are Dr. Fritz's main areas of focus. As principal investigator, she is responsible for ensuring that the facility runs smoothly, oversees a staff of approximately 70 people, interacts with other groups and investigators, and checks on the health and welfare of the animals. "One of the things I really like about the job is that it changes every day," she says. In addition to the usual reports and other paperwork, Dr. Fritz and her facility manager, Cliff Hubbard, have worked together to help improve employee morale and provide more staff training. Well-trained caretakers are critically important to maintaining the health of any animal colony and Dr. Fritz is very proud of her animal care staff. "I am very fortunate to have a terrific staff here, and that is a real plus to the job," Dr. Fritz says with a smile. "They are very competent and enjoyable to work with. I expect their main concern to be the quality and welfare of the animals they work with, and they don't let me down. Their job is extremely important to NCI's research effort, and I am very proud of them."

One of the reasons why Dr. Fritz likes working for CRL so much is that the company has given her the authority and freedom to make her own decisions regarding day-to-day operations, but has also been good about providing extra support and expertise when needed. "There is a close connection, but really, they [CRL] have been great about letting me run my place the way that I want to run it, but have been there whenever I've needed support," says Dr. Fritz. NCI-Frederick was CRL's first Federal government contract. Its success has helped establish a rapidly growing contracts department at CRL. Right now, the NCI-Frederick facility has more than 40 different strains of mice and rats that are available for shipment to NIH investigators around the world.

The standards for raising research animals are much higher now than in years past. "Since I have been here, there have been about three new viruses that have been discovered to affect research animals, and therefore are unacceptable," Dr. Fritz explains. "The bar keeps going higher and higher for the purity of these animals; I think that is the biggest change that I have seen," she says. "New and better diagnostic tests also keep being developed and must be added to our program, in addition to better barrier methods for maintaining disease-free animals. In older facilities, for instance, we use water showers to enter a barrier, but state-of-the-art air showers are now used in CRL's newer facilities for decontaminating caretakers."

Veterinary Science: Explore All the Career Options

As for future veterinarians, Dr. Fritz recommends that veterinary students explore all the options that are out there, in addition to the traditional vet who treats small pets or farm animals. "There are amazing things you can do, you could be in Africa tagging animals, you could be in the military . . . almost everywhere there is a niche for a veterinarian and I think a lot of these positions are really stimulating and interesting," explains Dr. Fritz.

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