Pioneer Equine Hospital: Bigger and Better Things in Store for Lameness Referral Practice in Calfornia

by Fran Jurga | 9 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

One of the leading veterinary referral hospitals in the United States is stretching its legs in its new building. Pioneer Equine Hospital in Oakdale, California has moved to a new building that gives them plenty of space for their lameness specialty practice and the surgery procedures that are their specialty.

Dr. Brad Jackman is now the owner of Pioneer Equine Hospital; former owner Dr. Jerry Black also still practices from the clinic. Behind Dr. Jackman you can see his pride and joy: the new hospital's high field MRI, Pioneer will be only the second hospital in the United States to offer MRI with a 1-tesla super conducting electromagnet from Oni Medical Systems.

The practice was featured in a newspaper article in yesterday's Modesto Bee, which you can read by clicking here. The Bee made a special video format for The Hoof Blog to be able to host the little video clip of a horse's plantar digital neurectomy (roughly translated: transection of the nerve to the back part of one hind foot) that I thought you all might find interesting, as well as the familiar face of Dr. Brad Jackman.

The neurectomy was performed by Dr. David MacDonald on a 20-year-old Warmblood-Thoroughbred cross with a history of chronic foot pain.

As to who's manning (or womanning) the farrier shop that has been built at the new facility? The hospital's web site lists longtime Pioneer consulting farrier Rocky Armitage and Rob Dugo. The one at the old hospital was built for and by our friend the late Emil Carre, who provided farrier services for the hospital in its early days. I still miss him, and I'll always wish Dr. Jackman and the hospital well.

All photos and the video accompanying this article are the work of Brian Ramsay at the Modesto Bee and are mirrored from that site. Thanks very much to Brian and the Bee for working with The Hoof Blog to bring you inside the new Pioneer Equine Hospital. 

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