Page 34 - The Hunt - Spring 2022

“You don’t get to choose which animal shows up in the emergency room.”
year. Dallap-Schaer was in the ER when 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was transported to New Bolton from Baltimore after he shattered his leg in that year’s Preakness.
Dallap-Schaer was still a student when
she met her Swiss husband. The pair have
two teenage daughters and live on a farm in Landenburg, where they primarily raise sheep. Tom Schaer is also employed as a physician
at New Bolton, involved mainly in research. “We bonded in surgery,” she recalls of their early chemistry. “He works in translational medicine and is in contact with clinicians from all over the country.”
Somehow, the two of them manage to balance an active farm life with their professional careers. “Barbara always has a lot on her plate,” says Corinne Sweeney, her predecessor at New Bolton Center. “But she always manages to handle each item with success and grace.”
A typical 12-hour day begins at the farm around 5 a.m. Dallap-Schaer works with her husband for about an hour tending to the herd of sheep, which can range from 60 to
80 head—plus chickens, bees and whatever else her husband has decided the farm needs. “Then I exercise, and we usually drive to work together,” she says. “We try not to talk about work at home—that’s our firewall.”
Dallap-Schaer has had to walk has been especially precarious, as she’s successfully managed to keep her staff safe while continuing to serve patients and their anxious owners. “In the past year and a half, I’ve been off the [hospital] floor—which is a little sad,” she admits. “I’ve always thought of myself as more of a clinician, and most people who are dual-boarded don’t go into administration. But both jobs involve triaging and delegating.”
By mid-March 2020, the pandemic had forced Penn students to leave the clinic for remote learning. “That caused a problem, because the state requires veterinary students to do clinical participation to get a degree,” says Dallap-Schaer, who quickly adopted safety protocols to protect the staff. “We were early mask adopters, by the third week of March, and we divided everyone into pods.”
Normally people who do the same
work associate with continued on page 133
32 THE HUNT MAGAZINE spring 2022
W
hen COVID-19 struck in March 2020, Barabara
Dallap-Schaer had a choice to make: She could maintain her schedule at
the hospital or try to do work-arounds from home. She chose the former. “I’m really a horrible parent,” she says, without a touch of drama or apology. “I didn’t work a single day from home. I’ve been in [the hospital] since March 16, almost two years ago.”
Amid the pandemic, the tightrope