Vol. 38, No. 18

1-23-2008
By: Kim Burdett

Welcome to Horseplay 101

The Galbreath Equine Center gives comprehensive care while teaching the next generation of veterinarians

Get-well cards, banners and newspaper clippings of the patient’s greatest accomplishments were tacked to his door — encouragement from fans and admirers during what had been a rough time.

The patient, a world-class athlete, seemed to know things weren’t looking promising; as the doctor scanned his chart, he kept his head turned away, avoiding eye contact.

The case had staff at Ohio State’s Galbreath Equine Center buzzing. The patient, Sharky Spur, was a million-dollar Standardbred racehorse who had won nearly a third of his 200 races. The doctor on call, Elizabeth Santschi, associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, said the prognosis, while serious, could have been worse.

“It’s a career-ending injury,” Santschi said. “But he’s healing.”

Sharky Spur had come to the Galbreath Center, a 40,000 square-foot research facility that sits adjacent to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital on Ohio State’s west campus, with a shattered pastern bone he had sustained while training.

As part of the only comprehensive referral veterinary teaching hospital in Ohio, West Virginia or Kentucky, with the advanced resources that come with it, the Galbreath is responsible for aiding much of Ohio’s $6 billion equine industry.

As such, staff here is accustomed to caring for celebrity horses such as Sharky Spur, but that’s not its normal clientele.

“The Galbreath Center is a comprehensive equine medical center that primarily serves as a resource for people in the state — as well as private veterinary practitioners — who need more advanced care,” said Rustin Moore, professor and chair of the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences.

“The center has brought a lot of recognition because it’s very comprehensive and very modern,” Moore said. “It continues to provide state-of-the-art veterinary care.”

Galbreath is one of the few centers of its kind nationwide. It features a neonatal intensive care unit, 24-hour surgery suites and high-speed treadmills that help veterinarians evaluate horses running at full speed.

The center hospitalizes about 1,200 horses in a year and sees a similar number on an outpatient basis. Galbreath also has a 24-hour ambulatory service run by Vet Hospital staff that offers on-farm primary care in the greater Columbus area. The field service faculty see about 11,000 horses a year, Moore said.

Of course, with Ohio’s horse racing industry down on the whole, and with competition arising from specialty private practice that didn’t exist 10 years ago, the center’s caseload is down from its peak in the 1980s. A reorganization in the center’s veterinary staff also contributed to the falling numbers.

“There are always challenges out there, and rebuilding our caseload is one of those,” said Thomas Rosol, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. “But first and foremost, we are a teaching institution, and we have many more cases than we need to teach with.”

Nevertheless, it also is still a business, and the changing face of the horse industry in Ohio and the new type of private competition have refocused the center and its staff on doing what they do best.

“We do want to be one of the best referral centers in the Midwest, and since we’re no longer the only game in town, it puts a premium on recruiting the best individuals, who have a love of teaching and a love of new knowledge and who can also provide responsive care, quality care,” Rosol said.

A distinct advantage the Galbreath has over private equine centers is its relationship with the veterinary hospital.

“In addition to our faculty specialists in equine, we also have specialists in ophthalmology, radiology, dermatology and more,” Moore said. “Although horses aren’t their primary specialty, they do work in conjunction. There’s no other facility in the three-state region that covers such breadth.”

Grant Frazer, director of the Veterinary Hospital, believes the educational experience is important as well. He thinks the academic environment of a university teaching hospital also helps the Equine Center excel.

“In academia, we have the cutting edge,” he said. “For many animals, we offer all the specialty services that a human would get at the Medical Center.”

Some Galbreath faculty members are even funded by the National Institutes of Health, a predominantly human-health related organization.

“The primary goal of the Galbreath Center is to help equine health,” Moore said. “But there may be opportunities where that also impacts other animals, other species, as well as people.”

Ultimately, faculty and staff at Galbreath and the hospital pride themselves on providing a quality education to veterinary students and working as a team to help ill and injured animals.

“We have people that are very innovative that aren’t happy with the status quo,” Moore said. “You’ll find people that will want to push the envelope in a good way to help the patient tomorrow that we couldn’t help today.”

And as for Sharky Spur, he has recovered as well as could have been hoped. He will never race again, but he is expected to resume his stud services for the 2008 season.

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