News

UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine alum Dr. David Baker (DVM '87), a professor at Louisiana State University SVM, was given the 2016 Ralph C. Cooper Veterinarian of the Year Award from the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association.

The Knights Landing One Health Clinic run by UC Davis Students for One Health offers free preventative and clinical care for pets and their owners at two different sites in a community close to the campus.

University veterinary teaching hospitals can serve two fundamental purposes: providing much-needed health care for your animals while advancing veterinary education in the process. Some facilities might even have access to research, treatments, and modalities that a small clinic or private practice do not have.

Animals aren't immune to stress and anxiety that we experience as humans. They, too, develop fears that can be stimulated from visual or audio triggers, like crowded parties and loud fireworks popping on the Fourth of July. And sometimes, even the smallest of triggers like the sound of a doorbell can create a lot of tension.

The J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory team—directed by Dr. Susan Stover, a professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine—conducts research on footing to improve equine health and injury prevention. Initially focusing on racing safety for racehorses and jockeys, the team also studies arena surface footings for other equine disciplines, such as dressage and jumping.

Some types of lameness are obvious. The horse that is pointing a hoof and barely loading the limb (or displaying a large head lift when the affected limb is loaded) needs help. Subtle lamenesses, however, are more difficult to recognize, and early detection and intervention are often key to successful resolution.

UC Davis equine clinicians and researchers currently learn a great deal from each other’s disciplines, but rarely work hand-in-hand on horses presented for evaluation of lameness or other gait abnormalities. Researchers utilize test horses to study movement and often analyze data from hundreds of past patients to determine injury patterns. Clinicians attempt to objectively detect lameness issues, sometimes utilizing sophisticated video equipment, but more often using only the naked eye, supplemented by ancillary procedures such as local anesthetic nerve or joint blocks and diagnostic imaging techniques. The future of equine research and care at UC Davis seeks to blend those two worlds into the most up-to-date performance center anywhere in veterinary medicine.

Beverages sweetened with low, medium and high amounts of high-fructose corn syrup significantly increase risk factors for cardiovascular disease, even when consumed for just two weeks by young, healthy men and women, reports a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis.

NOAA Fisheries is seeking public comments on a petition calling for a whale protection zone for highly endangered Southern Resident killer whales on the west side of Washington’s San Juan Island.

Pinnipeds whose eyes are affected by oil contamination and other hazards are benefitting from an antibiotic gel commonly used in human medicine and domestic animals, according to a study by veterinary experts at the Marine Mammal Center.

Several new clinicians and a new pharmacist have joined the UC Davis veterinary hospital over the past few months.

A veterinary student’s curriculum involves three years of intensive coursework and one final year of clinical instruction. Training more than 135 fourth-year DVM students annually, the UC Davis veterinary hospital wholeheartedly embraces its responsibility of being a teaching institution. Each student is closely supervised by faculty and resident veterinarians in order to ensure proper training, and that every animal is given the best possible care.

For more than a decade, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine Professor Dr. Joanne Paul-Murphy has aided a conservation group in New Zealand working to save a critically endangered parrot species. The kakapo is a large, flightless nocturnal parrot indigenous to New Zealand. With only 164 remaining on Earth, the kakapo has benefited from Dr. Paul-Murphy’s involvement.

Appraising a horse by physical appearance alone is a thing of the past in the world of equine breeding and selling. Thanks to rapidly changing advancements in technology, horse owners, breeders and enthusiasts can learn more about their horses now than ever before.

Dr. Temple Grandin will serve as the plenary speaker for the Winter Conference on Jan 7-8. The event features a variety of topics for veterinary professionals and the animal-owning public.