Texas Clinic Partners with Palm Beach Equine; Podiatry Services to Expand

(edited from a longer press release)

The growing trend toward veterinary clinic networks and shared consultants continues. Along with that trend is the concept of podiatry services as a profit center or consultant service. How different clinics plan to incorporate this concept into their service offereings is always interesting: Veterinarians wearing shoeing aprons is a new fashion statement. This information was received today:

Katy Equine Clinic in Katy, Texas and Palm Beach Equine Clinic, headquartered in Wellington, Florida, have formed a strategic partnership. Katy Equine's clients will now have access to Palm Beach's state of the art resources, including 19 leading Florida-based veterinarians, streamlined digital medical records and advanced diagnostic and treatment options. These new resources augment the current services that the Katy Equine Clinic and its founder, James "Mike" Heitmann, D.V.M., M.S., have provided for more than 25 years.

Plans call for the Katy Equine Clinic to become a regional referral hospital specializing in surgery, lameness, podiatry and emergency / ICU care. On the immediate horizon will be the construction of a new surgical suite and the purchase of additional diagnostic tools. Already available are digital radiography, computed radiography, ultrasound, two surgical rooms, shockwave therapy and the ability to create platelet-rich plasma for the treatment of wounds and ligament and tendon injuries. The number of staff veterinarians has already doubled, with Michelle Dumas, D.V.M., and Josh Zacharias, D.V.M., M.S., joining Dr. Heitmann and Catherine Berry, D.V.M.

"Joining the Palm Beach Equine Clinic team is a great opportunity to work with experienced veterinarians and utilize state of the art technology," says Dr. Zacharias, who has a Master's Degree in Veterinary Clinical Sciences and was the Equine Emergency Surgeon at Iowa State University before the move to Texas.

In addition to his role as surgeon, Dr. Zacharias has a keen interest in the equine hoof and attended farrier school. "Equine podiatry is critical to maintaining the athlete's soundness. I look forward to working with the farriers in the Katy and Houston area and providing world-class equine hoof health," he explained in the press release.

© 2008 Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This post was originally published on September 24, 2008 at http://www.hoofcare.blogspot.com.

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness, please visit our main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Comments to individual posts are welcome; please click on the comment icon at the bottom of the post.