Speakers Cervical Spine 21

Cervical Spine - the speakers

Phillippe Benoit
graduated from Alfort Veterinary School in 1989 Paris, France. He did a Master in Exercise Physiology from 1990 to 1992, and was Team veterinarian of the French Jumping Team from 1992 to 1999, and in 2000 for the teams of Saudi Arabia and Brazil. He established a clinic next to Versailles (France) in 1993 and monitors since 2012 constantly show jumpers of clients in USA. His main interests are orthopedics, shoeing and back problems of horses. He became Diplomate of the American College of Sport Medicine and Rehabilitation in 2014, and is now living in Cardiff (CA – USA) practicing as a consultant with local veterinarians and a large show jumping facility.

Sébastien Caure
graduated in 1994 from the Veterinary School of Nantes (France). In 1995 he started to work in the Equine Clinic of Livet, France, and became partner in 1999. The clinic developed into a hospital (Centre Hospitalier Vétérinaire Equin de Livet). The Centre celebrates this year the 25th anniversary of his foundation back in 1993. Sébastien worked in all fields of equine medicine but nowadays works exclusively in the diagnosis and treatment of lameness with an emphasis in podology.

Ottmar Distl
graduated in 1978 from the Veterinary Medicine Faculty of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich, Germany. There he received the title of Doctor in Veterinary Medicine in 1980 and was habilitated 1989 in Animal Genetics, Breeding and Biostatistics. Between 1990 and 1997 he was Professor for Animal Breeding and Genetics in the same faculty and since he is Full Professor and director of the Institute for Animal Breeding and Genetics of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover, Germany. He devotes his career to the improvement of health traits in domestic animals and plays a major role in equine breeding and genetics by contributing to the annotation of the horse reference genome as well as welfare, health and fertility of horses. He owns several patents.

Sue Dyson
graduated from Cambridge University, United Kingdom. She was Head of Clinical Orthopedics at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, England for many years until 2019 and is now an independent consultant for in-depth orthopedic evaluations and pre-purchase examinations of horses. She is a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Specialist in Equine Orthopedics, a European Specialist in Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation and Associate of the European College of Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging. Sue has also ridden at top British level in Eventing and Show Jumping and has trained horses that have competed at the Olympics and World Championships.


Christine Gee
graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2001. Since then, she has practiced in equine and mixed animal practices in Australia and worked and travelled in the UK. She undertook a graduate diploma in animal biomechanical medicine at RMIT University in 2008 and completed the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society Certification in 2011. In 2009, with the guidance of Ian Bidstrup, she left general veterinary practice. Through her spinal medicine practice, she developed an interest in lower cervical spine morphological variations and started PhD studies through the University of New England and the CSIRO in January 2020.


Kevin Haussler
graduated from The Ohio State University, College of Veterinary Medicine in 1988. He was trained in the conservative management of spinal-related disorders in humans at the Palmer College of Chiropractic-West and completed a veterinary chiropractic certification program in 1993. He attended the University of California-Davis to attain a PhD focusing on spinal pathology and pelvic biomechanics in Thoroughbred racehorses. Post-doctorate training involved evaluation of in-vivo spinal kinematics in horses at Cornell University. While at Cornell, he directed the newly formed Integrative Medicine Service which provided chiropractic, acupuncture and physical therapy services to both small and large animals. Currently, Kevin is Associate Professor at the Orthopedic Research Center at Colorado State University and involved in teaching, clinical duties, and research into the objective assessment of musculoskeletal pain, spinal dysfunction and the application of physical therapy and rehabilitation. He is a chartered diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation and a course instructor for the Equine Rehabilitation Certification course co-branded by the University of Tennessee and Colorado State University.

Jennifer Janes
received her DVM from the University of Tennessee in 2006. After graduation, she completed a one-year rotating internship at Wisconsin Equine Clinic and Hospital. Developing interests in equine musculoskeletal disease lead her to the University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA, where she completed a dual anatomic pathology residency and PhD program in 2014. Since 2015, Jennifer has been on faculty there at the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (UKVDL) and is currently Associate Professor of Veterinary Anatomic Pathology in the Department of Veterinary Science. The UKVDL necropsy caseload is approximately 50% equine, providing numerous opportunities to investigate a variety of disease processes related to equine health from diagnostic and collaborative research aspects. Her current research focus is equine musculoskeletal disease. Broad interests include pathology of the equine cervical column, issues related to Wobblers Syndrome and catastrophic breakdown injuries in racehorses.

Gabriella Lindgren
obtained a Master of Science in Agriculture from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala. She received a PhD at Uppsala University for the thesis on “Genome Analysis in the Horse” in 2001. Between 2001 and 2007 she worked in different academic institutions and private enterprises in the USA, Japan and Sweden before becoming an Assistant Professor and in 2009 an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Animal Breeding and Genetics, SLU. In 2011 she was appointed Senior Lecturer in Domestic Animal Genomics, SLU, and in 2018 Guest Professor, Department of Biosystems, University of Leuven, Belgium. She studies the genetics that regulate physical performance traits and locomotion pattern in horses, behavioral traits related to their athletic performance, allergic eczema and the developmental disease skeletal atavism cooperating with several horse breeding associations and enterprises in the horse industry. She is co-founder of Capilet Genetics, Inc. and holds several patents.

Sarah Puchalski
graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. Between 1999 and 2001 she completed a 2-years internship/residency in Field Service and Sports Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Centre. Then she did a diagnostic imaging residency at the University of California, Davis and obtained board certification in the American College of Veterinary Radiology in 2004. She was an Associate Professor of Diagnostic Imaging in the Department of Radiological and Surgical Sciences of the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California Davis, and left the University for private consulting practice working. Currently she interprets many different imaging modalities for a variety of US and international clinics.

Steve Reed
graduated from The Ohio State University, College of Veterinary Medicine in 1976. He completed an internship and residency at Michigan State University, College of Veterinary Medicine in 1979. He began his teaching career at Washington State University (1979-83) and continued at Ohio State University. Steve taught there for 26 years. He is a diplomate American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. He moved from University to Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in 2007 where he focuses on neurologic problems of horses. He is an adjunct Professor of the University of Kentucky, Gluck Equine Research Center and emeritus Professor of The Ohio State University.

Katharina Ros
graduated from the veterinary faculty of the University of Gießen, Germany, in 2003. In 2003 she became board certified in animal chiropractic (EAVC and IAVC). Between 2004 and 2006 she run an equine ambulatory dental and osteopathic practice. In 2006 she was accredited as Equine Dental Practitioner by the Internat. Association for the Improvement of the Equine Teeth (Internat. Gesellschaft zur Funktionsverbesserung der Pferdezähne – IGFP), as veterinary chiropractor by the Internat. Association of Veterinary Chiropractic and in 2007 by the International Association of Equine Dentistry. She owned and run between 2007 and 2016 an equine dentistry hospital in the middle of Germany, founded an equine dental station in Bad Vilbel in 2016 and an equine dental hospital in the north of Germany in 2018 (Doehle).

Fabrice Rossignol
was graduated in 1994 from National veterinary school of Toulouse, France. He Joined the equine clinic of Grosbois near Paris just after, and became partner in 1998. He became an ECVS diplomate in 2010. Fabrice is a senior surgeon at the Equine clinic de Grosbois. He has a 100% activity in surgery and has a major interest in upper airway surgery and fracture repair. He is involved in several research projects such as the development of a laryngeal pacemaker and new techniques of laryngeal reinnervation within the Medel group. He is also a member of the AOVET Large Animal Expert Group and Faculty since 2016 and is active in the development of new orthopedic implants.

Stefan Stammer
is a physiotherapist and a sports and gymnastics teacher. In 1999 he became an equine osteopath. Since then he treats horses and has introduced a complete physiotherapy system to manage and keep sport horses performing well up to the international elite level and also for rehabilitating them after injury. His biomechanical and therapeutical concept STAMMER KINETICS is part of the rehabilitation program at the University of Zürich and the International Academy of Veterinary Chiropractic runs an advanced course to learn about this concept.
Melinda Story
received her Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees from Colorado State University. After an Internship in Kentucky and surgical residency at Kansas State University, she returned to Colorado and worked in a private equine referral hospital as a staff surgeon for 9 years. In 2013 she returned to CSU and joined the equine sports medicine team. Melinda is board certified in surgery as well as in equine sports medicine and rehabilitation. She is certified in veterinary medical acupuncture and animal chiropractic. Her research interests are axial skeleton dysfunction and chronic pain.

Natasha Werpy
graduated from the Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO (CSU). After completing an equine internship in 1999-2000, she completed a year imaging internship with Norm Rantanen. Then she did a diagnostic imaging residency with Norm and at CSU. She is board certified by the American College of Veterinary Radiology. She worked as the Medical Imaging Director at the Gail Holmes Equine Orthopaedic Research Center at CSU under Wayne McIlwraith from 2004–2011. She is currently an Associate Professor of Diagnostic Imaging at the University of Florida in Gainesville with a 1.5 Tesla Toshiba MRI system and a CT system. In addition, she does private practice work, primarily reading MRIs from the Hallmarq system from several sites in the USA.