This Vet Student Traded the Basketball Court for the Clinic Floor

She Showed Up for Everyone Else. Now It's Her Turn.

Phylicia McInnis has spent her entire life showing up. For her teammates on the basketball court. For the kids in her community who look up to her. For her two fur babies, Coco the dog and Pork the cat, who have no idea their mom is going to be a doctor someday. Now, as a second-year veterinary student at Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, Phylicia is showing up for herself, and the veterinary profession is better for it.

Growing up as the youngest of two older brothers in a family that practically lived in gymnasiums and on tracks, Phylicia (pronounced Phee-Lee-See-Uh, in case you were wondering) learned early that grit and heart matter more than anything else. She played three sports her entire life and carried basketball all the way through college. Her mom missed a grand total of a handful of games over the course of her childhood. That kind of showing up leaves a mark on a person.

"My mom and dad's motto with me in school right now is, 'focus on school, we've got the rest,'" Phylicia shares. It is the kind of support system that does not come along often, and she does not take a single moment of it for granted.

She chose the small animal track at VMCVM with her sights set on urgent care or emergency medicine, though she keeps the door open to specialization. Her long game? Owning her own clinic. For someone who has been building toward big goals since she was three years old, it sounds less like a dream and more like a plan already in motion.

What makes Phylicia stand out in a class full of brilliant, driven people is not just where she is going. It is how she is getting there. She is the student who has already figured out something it takes some people years to learn: comparison is a trap, and collaboration is the point.

"We are all working for the same end goal. The competition part is over. It is important to lean on your classmates and work together." — Phylicia McInnis, DVM Candidate, VMCVM Class of 2028

In a field where burnout is a real and present danger, that kind of perspective is not just refreshing. It is necessary.

She clears her head the old-fashioned way: a good meal, a long jog on the trail, music in her ears, and whatever her current TV binge happens to be. The gym is her therapy. Movement is her reset button. And on the hard days, which vet school delivers in abundance, she does not let school follow her home once she closes the books.

On the biggest problem facing the veterinary field, Phylicia does not hesitate. She wants people to understand that pricing in veterinary medicine is not a character flaw. It is a reflection of what it actually costs to deliver high-quality care with the same equipment used in human medicine, for patients who cannot tell you what hurts. "Veterinarians aren't doing that just to take money," she says. "They are doing it to give animals the best chance at being healthy." Coming from someone who still has student loan years ahead of her, that clarity of conviction means everything.

The best advice she ever received? Keep following your own path, no matter who is in the background telling you it is not worth it. She is living proof that it is.

Phylicia McInnis is two years into a journey that will change her life, the lives of her future patients, and, if she has anything to say about it, the community she has never stopped showing up for.

Watch this one. She is just getting started.

Phylicia McInnis is a DVM Candidate, Class of 2028, at Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. She is a member of the Vet Candy Rising Stars Class of 2026.