In December 1969 Bruce Hohn and four other veterinarians from North America went to Davos to a human AO course. Professor Wade Brinker (Fig 38), who would later become the second President of AOVET and the first North American President, was a member of that group. Another distinguished member of the group was Professor Jacques Jenny, actually a Swiss expatriate, who was teaching equine surgery at the University of Pennsylvania at the New Bolton Center. Previously in 1943, as a resident at the University of Zürich, Jacques Jenny assisted Dr Knoll and Dr Willenegger in the first clinical intramedullary nailing in a dog (see Fig 3). Unfortunately, Jacques Jenny died after the Davos course in 1972, much too early. However, before his death, Professor Jenny had established the use of AO techniques at his school. The last horse Jenny performed surgery on before he died was “Hoist the Flag”, who broke its proximal phalanx (comminuted fracture) and the adjacent third metatarsal bone (condylar fracture) of the right hind leg. The surgery took 6 hours with Dr Delahanty of Cornell University assisting. At the end of the surgery the first ever fiberglass cast was applied to the injured limb. John Alexander and David Nunamaker did the cast changes and the horse survived. Unfortunately “Hoist the Flag” bit off its grooms thumb in their presence—it was not a nice, well-mannered horse. During the Davos courses in 1969 Bruce Hohn met Fritz Straumann and Ortrun Pohler. At that time, Hohn had left the AMC and was a professor at OSU in Columbus, Ohio. He left Davos knowing that he wanted to organize and chair an AO course at OSU, so in March 1970, 99 veterinarians and faculty were present at the first annual course on “Internal Fixation of Fractures and Non-unions.” This course was cosponsored by OSU and AO. The following year the veterinary course was combined with a human AO course—the first human AO course to be offered in the US. An equine course was also added to the event with the help of Professor Jenny. As previously mentioned he passed away a year later and could therefore not reap the full harvest of his work. Fig 38 Professor Wade Brinker of Michigan State University served as the second AOVET President. He promoted the systematic internal fixation technique in small animals. He was an avid downhill skier.
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