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By: Callie Rainosek and Jennifer Gauntt
Dr. Susan Eades brings a wealth of experience from across the Southern U.S. in innovative teaching, mentoring, and researching as the new head of Large Animal Clinical Sciences. When Dr. Susan Eades, professor and head of the Large Animal Clinical Sciences Department at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM), enrolled in engineering classes at Louisiana State University (LSU) in the 1970s, her family of engineers thought she was destined to take on the family profession. However, Eades had a different plan. Quickly realizing the field wasn’t for her, she traded her engineering calculator for a stethoscope and started a preveterinary program soon after she began her undergraduate degree. Passionate about becoming a veterinarian and helping companion animals, Eades continued her education at LSU and earned her DVM degree in 1982. Though Eades expected to specialize in companion
Erin Lester, Dr. Susan Eades and Clarissa Root 22 | CVM Today
Dr. Susan Eades and fourth-year veterinary student Clarissa Root examining Charlie. animals, horses had always intrigued her. In college, she took every opportunity to interact with horses, including cleaning stalls and exercising horses for a cutting and reining horse trainer. In veterinary school, she purchased her first horse and developed a bond. This bond, and her clinical rotations, further convinced Eades to develop her skills in large animal medicine, with the goal of working in a small-town mixed private practice. However, during her fourth-year clinical rotations in small and large animal internal medicine, Eades decided she wanted to specialize in internal medicine, so she applied for academic internships after earning her DVM degree and never looked back. “I ended up never going into private practice,” Eades said. “Instead, I stayed in academia.” She participated in clinical research during her internship and residency at New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania and decided that another degree would be the next step in her career. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1988 in veterinary physiology and pharmacology and then accepted a position there as a clinical faculty member. But Eades’ love for horses never waned; she started researching laminitis, a crippling disease that is categorized by inflammation in the horse hoof, at the University of Georgia. She described this time in her life as “perfect” because her passions for medicine, horses, and research were being used simultaneously in the veterinary profession. Her work with laminitis gave Eades the opportunity to develop worldwide research collaborations. Though laminitis is a complicated condition, Eades and her research partners