Elevating the lives of others

At our community veterinary hospital on the CSU Spur campus, we feel honored to provide the care we do every day. To ensure that people in financial need have a reliable place to turn when their beloved pets are suffering. To have earned the trust of our compassionate supporters, whose donations make our services possible, sustainable, and more accessible year after year. To work in a state-of-the-art facility, surrounded by other Colorado leaders and scientists who are as committed as we are to engaging learners from all walks of life. Each fills our cup to the brim with gratitude and elevated purpose.

Our veterinary teams are also lucky to work alongside someone as special as Dr. Matthew Chavkin. For more than a year, Dr. Chavkin, a local board-certified veterinary ophthalmologist, has generously provided pro-bono care and unique learning opportunities to clients and staff at our Veterinary Hospital at CSU Spur. But his partnership with Humane Colorado goes back even further. Before finding his place at Spur, Dr. Chavkin would often step away from his full-time job as Medical Director of Mountain Star Veterinary Specialists to mentor our shelter veterinarians on complicated eye surgeries and challenging cases, providing consultation and hands-on workshops. According to Dr. Chavkin,

Veterinarians who choose to work in shelters or accessible, high-volume settings are the best of us. I understand the veterinary spectrum of care. My Mountain Star clients are fortunate to be able to afford premium care. I wanted to support the doctors who serve clients and patients at the other end of the spectrum.

This dedication, along with his deep compassion for animals and people, is ultimately what drew him to CSU Spur. As a natural teacher, Dr. Chavkin brings not only expertise, but intention, empathy, and humor to his daily interactions with others. For him, his role as a veterinarian is as much about the relationships as it is about the medicine. Much of this can be traced to his veterinary education at Cornell University, where his own mentors played a pivotal role in his decision to pursue a career in ophthalmology. “People open doors for you, and you walk through,” he said.

Dr. Chavkin knows a lot about opening doors, as he puts it, “holding the ladder for someone else.” During a transition from his early role at VRCC Hospital, which included an immersive sabbatical to Utah’s Anasazi Ridge, he volunteered as a communications skills coach for the Healer’s Art Course at CSU. Through supporting this elective class, designed to help veterinary students “bring their whole selves to the practice,” Dr. Chavkin (re) discovered what brings him the most joy – elevating the lives of people and animals through genuine kindness, earned trust, and connection. These core values would later become the foundation of Mountain Star Veterinary Specialists and everything he does for Humane Colorado.

At CSU Spur, Dr. Chavkin works with our team one day each month, providing specialty ophthalmology services at a fraction of what they typically cost. True to form, he loves taking his time with families during exams to understand their concerns and goals. “So often, people come to us for our perspective, but the reality is, we should meet clients with the mindset that they are the experts,” he said. For people who have seldom received this approach to care, the experience can be quite moving, even overwhelming. “I see stressed patients and clients at Spur become physically calmer and more elevated than they were before the technician and I came into the room,” said Dr. Chavkin. “To me, that’s veterinary medicine.”

Seeing reactions like these – as well as providing supportive mentorship and donating specialized equipment for our staff, interns, and externs – feels good to Dr. Chavkin, too. He admits it’s a bit of a “selfish joy” to live his values and leverage his skills and privileges to help others. “My work at CSU Spur has been soul feeding for me,” he said. “I am grateful to have become a peripheral part of a team of people working in a healthy culture – they are dedicated to a shared noble cause and to each other.” We are so honored to be in connection with Dr. Chavkin.

Mountain Star Veterinary Specialists provides premium ophthalmology and dermatology services focused on animal, client, staff, and community care. Learn more about their work and mission at mountainstarvs.vet.