Professor Emeritus of the College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. John Schumacher, DVM, MS, and an American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Large Animal) Diplomate, was recently awarded the prestigious ACVS Merit Award by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) and the ACVS Foundation. The award recognizes Schumacher’s major contributions to the veterinary medicine profession, not only in the clinical practice of equine medicine and surgery, but also in support of his collaborative research and focus on equine lameness.
The ACVS Merit Award was established to acknowledge contributions to the progress of veterinary surgery made by an individual from outside the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. It is given to an individual who has a career dominated by major and ongoing contributions to the art and science of veterinary surgery.
Schumacher developed novel and refined diagnostic methods that significantly contributed to the veterinary profession’s current understanding of equine lameness and best practices for diagnostic analgesia. Equine surgeons perform lameness evaluations as a primary portion of their practices and have benefited in the interpretation and diagnosis of musculoskeletal pain. By carefully mapping what is, and what is not desensitized by each anesthetic injection (local, regional and intra-articular anesthesia), he revolutionized the approach to lameness examination of the horse.
A member of the faculty of the Auburn CVM Department of Large Animal Medicine and Surgery from 1982 until his retirement in 2019, Schumacher was equine section head from 1994-97 and again in 2000. He was awarded the Carl J. Norden Distinguished Teacher Award in both 1995 and 1998 by the Department of Large Animal Medicine and Surgery. In addition, his local, national and international contributions have supported the missions of Auburn Vet Med, the ACVS and the veterinary profession as a whole.
Originally published on the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine website in November 2020.