veterinary
Photo: Erin Gilmore inside Palm Beach Equestrian Clinic
on. What’ s different about PBEC is that we don’ t offer strawberry and vanilla; we offer another 52 flavors and can provide services way beyond what other facilities can provide. It’ s not just our CT scanner that sets us apart, but our nuclear scintigraphy machine and standing MRI. With all this technology, we need the people to make it all happen. One of those people is radiologist Dr. Sarah Puchalski. She reviews all of our images and provides excellent clinical recommendations to address very specific issues with very positive results for horse and rider.
In your opinion, taking into consideration the last ten years, what is the most significant discovery in the world of equine veterinary study?
I think as an industry we improve every year. Diagnostics, treatment regimes, results, and therapies have made huge advances in the last ten years. I would say the work that has been done with 3-D imaging, CT, and MRI scans are the newest and most exciting advances that we have had in the last ten years. We are also very fortunate to have Dr. Gary T. Priest, our resident throat specialist on staff at PBEC. We have begun doing dynamic scopes where we can evaluate a horse’ s breathing in real time and see what the air mechanism is doing when a horse is playing in a polo match or performing a dressage movement.
Additionally, this year will be the first time we are sending frozen embryos from polo horses to Argentina. Before, they would send horses back to Argentina at 12 or 13 to breed, but now they are 17 or 18 and that is not the best reproductive age. We are breeding younger horses still in training in the U. S. with the best polo stallions in the world and shipping frozen embryos to recipient mares in Argentina. At PBEC, we have welcomed Dr. Katie Atwood as our resident reproductive specialist and are making significant improvement to our reproductive center.
What is your next big goal for PBEC?
Maybe it is just my personality or the board of directors at PBEC, but we are establishing goals every month. We are always looking forward to the future, but without the clients and quality of horses we have, we would never be able to have such services. It’ s not PBEC that deserves the credit; it’ s the clients and their brave horses.
For me personally, we see a new challenge every year with better equine athletes, and as veterinarians we need to provide solutions and services to maintain the health and safety of horses first and foremost. But also, we help extend the professional life of the athlete itself. I can remember when 16 or 17 was the age of an older horse. Now it’ s the normal age horses are winning competitions, and a lot of that has to do with innovations in veterinary science. And, after we do it with horses, others do it for humans; we are often the testing ground for human innovations. The future is wide open! Anything you can think of, we are doing it in veterinary medicine. When I was graduating from vet school, I never imagined I would be leading a facility with a group of people with the skill sets we have today. It’ s a dream come true.
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