Chapter 01: A Veterinarian Father Involved in the New Field of Laboratory Animal Medicine
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Description
In this chapter, Dr. Tinkey talks about her family and experiences growing up in an agricultural area of Illinois with a veterinarian father. In particular, she tells the story of how her father came to be a community veterinarian and then, as a result of the Vietnam War, spend twenty years in the Air Force, working in the relatively new field of Laboratory Animal Medicine conducting animal research for the space program.
Identifier
TinkeyPT_01_20160531_C01
Publication Date
5-31-2016
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Personal Background; Personal Background; Inspirations to Practice Science/Medicine; Influences from People and Life Experiences; Understanding Cancer, the History of Science, Cancer Research
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Or pause the recorder for any other reason. OK. Well, we are ready to start. The counter is moving. And it is about three minutes after 10:00 on the 31st of May, 2016. And I’m in the Mitchell Building on the Main Campus of MD Anderson interviewing Dr. Peggy Taylor Tinkey for the Making Cancer History Voices Oral History Project run by the Historical Resources Center at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. And here I’m going to say some details about your professional life. So if I make a mistake, please do jump in and correct me. Dr. Tinkey came to MD Anderson in 1993 as an assistant veterinarian in the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. She advanced to faculty status in 1998. So far so good?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
I have to go back and see. I guess I thought I was faculty status when I came in ’93. But I’m not sure.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So we’ll make a question about that.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
I just can’t remember that far back.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, and that’s fine.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
We’ll have to check because I’m not familiar that they use the title assistant veterinarian anymore actually. And so that might have been something equivalent to instructor at that time.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK, well, we can check. Those details are significant for the record, but probably in the grand scheme -- but you’re now professor in that department. And you served as chair since 2006.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
That’s correct.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And this is in the Division of Basic Science Research?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Correct.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK, excellent. And also joint appointment, associate professor, Department of Pathology.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Pathobiology.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Pathobiology, OK. In the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
That’s correct.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK, great. So this is the first of two planned interview sessions. And I want to thank you for your time.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Sure. Absolutely.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I’ve really been looking forward to this. I interviewed Dr. Satterfield out at Bastrop a while ago, and it was a really interesting interview, a very different perspective taking you into the inner workings if you will of MD Anderson that people don’t often think about. So there are a number of people who said, “Oh, we have to interview Peggy Tinkey. We have to interview Peggy Tinkey.” So I’m really glad we’re doing it this morning. OK, so I wanted to start in a traditional place and ask you where you were born and when. And tell me a little bit about your family background.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Well, I was born on March 10th, 1959 in a small farming community in central Illinois. The name of the town was Tuscola. That’s where I was born because that’s where the small community hospital was. But my parents actually lived on a farm not in the town. That was by virtue of the fact that at the time -- my father is a veterinarian. And he was born and raised in central Illinois in a farming community and went to college and veterinary school at the University of Illinois. And his plan for life was to be a mixed animal practitioner back in the community where his entire family lived and farmed. And so that’s where we were at the time I was born in 1959. It didn’t stay that way. As most people, you have a plan for life, and then life happens and it takes you in directions you never anticipated. But that’s what their plan was at the time, he and my mom.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now did they come from farming families?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
My father did. My grandmother and grandfather Taylor farmed in that community and my dad’s brothers and sisters, most of them farmed in that community, a brother and two sisters. And one sister was a teacher, but she still returned to that community to teach for pretty much her career. So they were all from there. My mom was actually originally from the South Side of Chicago. And then her family relocated to a small town just south of Joliet, Illinois called Wilmington, Illinois. And actually my mom and dad met when they were both students at the University of Illinois.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now your dad’s name?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Gale, G-A-L-E, Gale Taylor.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And your mom’s name?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Marilyn McCarville Taylor, M-C-C-A-R-V-I-L-L-E. Through that name you can probably see where I get my features and coloration. The Irish in that name. The freckles and hair color.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, I’m struck by your story of how people kept returning. Sounds like there were strong family roots, strong community roots.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Yes, very much. As a matter of fact, on my mom’s side most of her family still lives in Wilmington.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow, that’s amazing.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
So my mom and dad were really one of the few family members who left that community and pursued their career outside of central Illinois.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. Now do you have brothers and sisters?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
I have two brothers, an older brother and a younger brother.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And their names?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
My older brother is Tom, Thomas, and my younger brother is Matthew, Matt.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me about growing up with a veterinarian father.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
So the interesting thing is so back in that era if you remember what was going on in the late ’50s and the ’60s, there were a couple of things going on. There was a war going on. Vietnam War was going on. And there was also a national space effort going on. And there was a draft. And the way I understand the story is the community that my dad and his family lived in very much needed a veterinarian. And so my dad was scheduled to be drafted while he was in veterinary school, and I guess the community could ask for deferral if it was a physician or veterinarian or somebody in the community that the community really needed. And so they had asked for a deferral, and it had been granted, since he was a veterinarian coming back to the community.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And so this was the Tuscola community?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
That’s correct. Yeah. There were a number. Tuscola, Arcola, several small towns right around that community where he would practice. And so he had gotten out of veterinary school. I think he graduated in ’56 or ’57. I can’t remember now. I think ’56. And come back to the community, and was practicing, but I guess was going to be drafted again. And the community again asked him to request a deferral. This was in the early ’60s now. And he didn’t want to do that. He felt like he needed to serve his country. So he I guess would have been drafted into the army. And his brother-in-law, his sister’s husband, happened to be in the air force. And so my dad knew a little more about the air force through that experience. My uncle Walt. So rather than be drafted into the army, my dad enlisted in the air force in 1962. And his plan was, ‘I will do this whatever, two- or three-year, I will do this three-year enlistment, I will do my duty to my country, and I will return here to my practice.’ But that didn’t happen. Again because of both of these things happening. There was the Vietnam War going on and there was people being drafted. But there was also a space race going on. And at the time the air force was really scooping up every veterinarian they could find and putting them into the space research program. And so my father, rather than inspecting fresh fruits and vegetables and doing public health, which a lot of the army veterinarians did and still do, important work, but they said, “Hey, how would you like to learn about something called laboratory animals? We want you to work on the animal research that’s being done to support the space program.” Nobody knew what would happen to a human being if you put them into orbit and they were weightless and exposed to radiation and protons and all of these things that went on out in space. Nobody knew. So there was a lot of animal research being done to try and determine those types of things. What’s the effect of weightlessness? What’s the effect of these high g-forces that they’re going to experience? What’s the effect when you get outside the atmosphere and then you’re exposed to these unfiltered radiations and things? So that was in 1962. And the long story short, my dad spent 20 years in the air force.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow, history creates luck sometimes.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Yes, very much. And part of my background of course, I was never in the military myself, I was just the child of a military officer, but through that experience, I believe all branches of the military are very good about identifying talent and then offering education. It always comes with a commitment. If they educate you, you have a commitment for an extended period of service. But through that my father, they sent him to Texas A&M, and he got a master’s degree in both toxicology and I think they had a degree at that time in laboratory animal medicine. And he became board-certified in the veterinary specialty of laboratory animal medicine.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now was laboratory animal medicine a new field or a growing field at the time? I don’t know anything about the history.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
It was relatively new and growing. In fact things that we take for granted today such as some of the regulations that we have with the Animal Welfare Act and the fact that an institution like MD Anderson that conducts research using animals must have an institutional animal care and use committee, institutional animal care and use committees didn’t even exist by law before 1985. There was really no governing body that oversaw the use of animals in research. So when my dad entered this field in 1962, it was very very new. And like I said, even now in traditional veterinary school, certainly you learn a lot about companion animals and food animals and other types of farm animals and equines, horses, but you don’t really learn a lot about rats and mice and monkeys in veterinary school. Most of that training happens after veterinary school if you decide to come into the specialty of laboratory animal medicine.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And then there’s the whole mindset of actually doing research design, which is a different mindset.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Exactly. From practicing. Right.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me about being immersed in that kind of environment with a dad who came home. And did he talk to you about his work? How did that evolve?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Looking back at it, I think oh, man, I missed so many opportunities. Because honestly, I think I’m like most kids. Most kids don’t get involved much in what their parents are doing at work. It’s just when the dad comes home, well, gosh, you better have your chores done and your homework done and things like that. You don’t ask a lot about so what did you do at work today, Dad. But I even told my husband over the weekend. We watched a documentary that was being offered called The Last Man on the Moon. It just caught my eye and I wanted to watch it. And it was about -- gosh, I can’t even remember the name of the astronaut now. But one of the guys who was on the very last Apollo missions. So they went back. They had a lot of old film footage from Houston and from NASA. And I told my husband. They had a picture of one of those large centrifuges, one that’s in a huge room, and the astronauts are actually sitting in the capsule, they’re spinning them around. And I said, “I remember seeing those centrifuges as a kid.” My dad took me. I don’t know why we were up there. But I remember seeing those centrifuges, thinking OK, that’s really weird-looking, that they sit somebody in there and spin them around.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It was to imitate g-forces?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Exactly. And of course my dad was involved because they had animals enrolled in some of these centrifuges. So I remember seeing these huge centrifuges at the lab where my dad worked, which was in San Antonio at the time, most of it, at Brooks Aerospace. That air force base is now shut down. But at the time it was very active. And so I remember snippets of things. But as a child I don’t remember ever thinking oh, I’m going to do that when I grow up. I just remember that’s what my dad did. And in that particular field, even on that particular air force base, that was one of the smaller bases. It was a very small tight-knit community. The veterinary group was a small tight-knit community, even then. So I remember having block parties. And I remember the adults talking about what was going on and the studies that were going on. But again I don’t remember thinking oh, this is so cool, I’m going to do that.
Recommended Citation
Tinkey, Peggy T. DVM and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 01: A Veterinarian Father Involved in the New Field of Laboratory Animal Medicine" (2016). Interview Chapters. 1221.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1221
Conditions Governing Access
Open
