“If you go looking for the thread that ties my story together,” says veterinarian Samantha “Sami” Peery Hamm, “you’ll find a patchwork quilt of somewhat random experiences. My love of animals is what stitches all the pieces into a whole.”
Hamm traces the origins of her affinity for animals to her grandfather, for whom she named one of her dogs. “I named my Willie after my grandpa who was a very large animal lover. I’m sure I got a lot of my animal-loving genes from him.”
As Hamm grew up in her native Brownsburg, family pets included both dogs and cats. “There was never any time in our house when we didn’t have a Doberman Pinscher. There was also a Bernese Mountain Dog and a bunch of rescues. We had cats, too, including domestic shorthairs and several Main Coons.”
A Veterinarian Since Age Four
Hamm has known she wanted to be a veterinarian at least since age four when she told her parents she wanted to dress as a veterinarian for Halloween. Her mother made her a veterinarian costume, complete with a horse for her to carry along with her trick-or-treat bag.
“When I became a little older, I had my own clinic—Sami’s Helping Paws,” Hamm recalls. “Besides treating our family dogs and cats, I took all the tags out of my Beanie Babies’ ears. I said the tags amounted to animal abuse.”
One cat made his way into the Peery household when young Sami—by then an elementary school student—agreed to eat a hamburger.
“We were visiting with my grandparents in Virginia for a week, and I spent the whole time playing with a litter of kittens. I was a picky eater and my dad knew I especially didn’t like red meat, but he said if I would eat a hamburger, I could have the kitten. He probably just wanted me to get some iron.
“So I ate the hamburger and we drove all the way back home to Indiana with the kitten. Oreo was a good kitty. He lived to be 14 or 15.”
Hamm stayed busy during her years at Brownsburg High School studying and playing soccer. “I was either in school or at soccer just about all the time,” she recalls. “I was very lucky in my teenage years that my parents didn’t want me working late after soccer practice. Their biggest thing was that I do my homework. Still, I managed to fit in some after-school and summer veterinary jobs in between school and soccer.”
Also while in high school, Hamm considered a career in human medicine after her brother was diagnosed with cancer. (He’s fine now.)
“I thought about pediatric oncology and chose biology as my undergraduate major to leave the door open to human medicine for a few years,” she says. “But while studying abroad in England during my sophomore year at the University of Evansville, I decided to stick with my passion and give myself at least one round of applications to vet schools. I got in on the first round.
“I did a lot of community service work as an undergraduate, including a lot in shelters and veterinary clinics. I also worked with a zoo in Evansville to get experience with different animals—rhinos, giraffes, turtles.”
Hamm went on to complete her bachelor’s degree in biology at Evansville in 2017 and her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine in 2021.
Coming Home to West Side
Following her graduation from vet school, Hamm worked more than four years at two small animal practices.
With strong ties to her hometown, she launched her professional career close to home. “My husband and I moved back to Brownsburg after I graduated in 2021 because in the future, if we were going to have kids, we wanted them to grow up near their family.”
Within her first year and a half on the job, a Bernese Mountain Dog Hamm adopted while an undergraduate—Ailah—succumbed to cancer. “We diagnosed her and did the whole chemo thing, giving me lots of personal experience with cancer treatment. She was my true heart dog. The best dog ever.”
In her next position, Hamm ventured into less familiar territory. “I started out working on the west side of Indianapolis, where I had family and friends, and two years later took a position at a larger practice on the north side where I didn’t have as many connections. I had a really great time there and I learned a lot, but the whole time I worked on the north side, I missed my west side clients.
“Soon after our son arrived in 2025, I started looking for work closer to home in a practice where I could more easily balance being a mom with being a veterinarian.”
Hamm joined Brownsburg Animal Clinic as an associate veterinarian in October 2025.
She, her husband and their son share their home with two Bernese Mountain Dogs—Franny and Willie, a Mastiff—Mater, rescued from a shelter, and cats Pickles and Pork Chop.
“My parents were adopting from the shelter, and Mater, who had pneumonia, came home with me because who was going to take better care of a sick shelter dog than me?”
While many professionals in veterinary medicine freely admit they prefer animals to people, in her life’s patchwork quilt as a veterinarian, Hamm sees a genuine liking and empathy for people as essential patches.
“To succeed in veterinary medicine, you have to be a people person even before you’re an animal person,” she maintains. “On a practical level, it’s hard to practice veterinary medicine without relating to the people who bring the patients to the clinic. It’s not as if they can bring themselves there for their appointments.
“At the root of the client-patient relationship is the human-animal bond—something I have benefited from personally since I was very young. For me as a veterinarian, being able to help owners maintain and enjoy that relationship for years and years with their own animals is so rewarding.
“I think I was placed in this world with a fierce love of animals—along with some people skills—so I could have the greatest impact on helping my clients and their pets live their best lives together for as long as possible.
“It’s a mixture of a calling and wanting to make the world better by helping the animals I love and their people.”