At Paint Creek Animal Clinic, it's All in the Family

In one of her earliest memories, Carrie Barkham is shaking the painted green bars of a kennel at the veterinary clinic, but she wasn't doing it to startle the animal inside.

Instead, at the age of 3 or 4, Barkham would sometimes find herself tucked away inside the cage while her father, a veterinarian, worked with the animals.

"It wasn't safe for me to be around the dogs, so to keep me safe, he'd put me in there with coloring books and stuff like that," she said, chuckling. "I don't have a bad memory of it; it's just a funny one."

Started out young

That was just the first of many memories Barkham would make of her father working.

"I remember going on road calls with my dad when I was four or five and asking him a million questions, because sometimes my mom needed a break from all of us," said Barkham, who has three younger brothers.

As the years passed, Barkham transitioned from coloring pictures inside the kennel as a tot to cleaning the kennels for her father as a teen. After graduating high school, Barkham attended MSU on a 4-H scholarship and gained early admittance to the veterinary school.

A family affair

Now, she and her younger brother, Tommy Barkham, both veterinarians, work side-by-side with their father, Thomas Barkham, at the in Goodison.

"We like what we do," Carrie Barkham said. "We each have different things we're good at, and it's nice to have someone else to confer with."

All three Barkhams graduated from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University, as did Carrie Barkham's grandparents; her grandfather and two uncles are also veterinarians in Ionia.

"We bleed green and white," she joked.

Family feuds

Though they say working with their family members can be nice, Carrie and Thomas Barkham admit it isn't always easy.

"The No. 1  problem is just not communicating well," Carrie Barkham said. "There can be (tension) sometimes."

"We have frank discussions if we disagree," her father said.

Ruth Barkham, Thomas' wife and mother of Carrie and Tommy, can also frequently be found at the clinic doing paperwork and assisting where needed. With four Barkhams all working at the clinic, things can sometimes get "testy," Thomas Barkham said.

"We have to have a certain separation of church and state," Carrie joked. She admits to fighting with her brothers as kids, but says they can now put aside personal differences while working.

Working together

Instead of picking fights, as siblings and family members sometimes do, the Barkhams see their disagreements and differences as simply more ways to better care for their four-legged patients.

"I think we finally have learned to agree to disagree on things," Carrie said.

Barkham added that her perspective as a younger woman often differs from that of her father and even her younger brother, but that those differences are often a good thing.

"I really like internal medicine, and I really like dermatology," she said, adding that her father and brother have separate interests, which allow the family to provide broader care to their patients.

Now, the Barkhams use their differences to their advantage, often brainstorming to find the best care options for their patients.

"There's more than one way to skin a cat," Thomas joked.