Scone Veterinary Protégés I
Featured Image: Professor Sheila Laverty MVB, DACVS, DECVS
For over fifty (50) years the Scone Veterinary fraternity has promoted and sponsored continuing professional development across the international spectrum. Lately this practice has earned the sobriquet ‘Shuttle Veterinary Diplomacy’; probably the forerunner of similar mobility of working stud staff between the two hemispheres? The inaugural exchange veterinarian was James Crouch from Reynolds and Partners, Newmarket UK to Murray Bain in 1967. James was the recipient of a British Horse Race Betting Levy Board Scholarship. Dr John Egloff from Hagyard Davidson McGee, Lexingtion KY USA joined Frank Williams in season 1968. He was placed mainly at Widden Stud. Bill Howey and Richard Greenwood had also arrived from the UK in 1967 to join Murray Bain & Associates. They were both ‘Ten Pound Poms’. This latter practice later emerged as Scone Equine Hospital and now Scone Equine Group; one of the ‘giants’ on the world stage.
Dr Sheila Laverty MVB DACVS DECVS is a shining example of this strategy. She has enjoyed a stellar career since her brief locum assistant appearance in the early 1980s. Sheila had worked for Kieran Bredin on the Curragh, County Kildare. Kieran had been a visiting veterinarian to Scone in 1972. Sheila was much in demand. Sheila has written: “I simply loved my time there from both a professional and personal standpoint. I feel that my brain expanded and those 2 years changed me and my vision of the World forever”.
Professor Sheila Laverty MVB, DACVS, DECVS
Sheila Laverty is a Professor of Equine Surgery and Director of the Comparative Orthopaedic Research Laboratory at the University of Montreal. She is a clinician researcher, a surgeon and Chief of the Equine Surgery Service in the University’s Equine Hospital.
Dr Laverty graduated from University College Dublin, worked in racing practice on the Curragh and Fethard Equine Clinic/Coolmore Stud (Ireland) in the 1980’s. She also enjoyed working in the Scone Veterinary Clinic and in New Zealand during this time. Dr Laverty then completed an Equine Surgery and Lameness Residency at the University of California Davis in 1988. She was the first European woman to certify as a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons in Large Animal surgery.
Her Comparative Orthopaedic Research Laboratory has focussed on the pathophysiology, diagnosis and therapy of joint disease for over 20 years. Sheila was alsoa member of the Canadian Arthritis Network, a federally funded, internationally renowned research network of 150 Canadian researchers, including orthopaedic surgeons, engineers and basic scientists, for 12 years and served on its research advisory committee. She is currently serving on the research advisory committee of the Arthritis Society of Canada and Quebec scientific network, Thé Cell, to advance cell therapy research. Her research is currently funded by the equine industry and by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Quebec Cell therapy network. She also worked with the pharmaceutical industry on the development of novel therapies for arthritis.
Past achievements include: recipient of the institutional Pfizer Research excellence prize on two occasions; 140 publications in leading scientific journals such as the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, Veterinary Surgery and Equine Veterinary Journal; invited speaker for over 100 lectures and supervision of 70 post graduate students (Post docs, PhDs, MScs, surgery residents and interns) including15 ACVS diplomates to date.
Sheila still enjoys equine surgery but also likes the challenges of researching the problems she encounters daily in clinics, such as osteochondrosis.
Professor Sheila Laverty will address a meeting of the local Equine Veterinarians of Australia (EVA) in Scone on Thursday 8th March 2018. She will be supported by her husband and partner Professor Jean-Pierre Lavoie (Canada) DMV, DACVIM.
Professor Laverty MVB, DACVS, DECVS:
“Osteochondrosis – a review, including current thoughts on pathophysiology, treatment and prognosis”.
Professor Lavoie DMV DACVM:
“Equine asthma – a review, including current thoughts on diagnosis and treatment”.