From cells to Clydesdales: a romp around the veterinary profession

A veterinary degree is a passport to endless opportunities including clinical work, education, diagnostic investigation and research. Professor Milne’s career has combined these areas, with the ultimate aim of improving disease diagnosis and developing clinical pathology internationally.

Prof Milne's early work as a clinician at the R(D)SVS included a focus on equine grass sickness, a frequently fatal disease of the nervous system of horses of unknown cause. By developing new management strategies, she and her team increased the survival rate of chronic cases from almost zero to 50%, and the treatment protocols she pioneered are now widely used. How these horses can survive is the subject of her current work.

A move in 1996 to the SRUC Disease Surveillance Centre in Dumfries gave opportunities for experience in diagnostic investigation and laboratory management, interrupted dramatically by the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak. Since 2002, Professor Milne has worked as a clinical pathologist at the R(D)SVS. In addition to the diagnostic service, her current work includes red squirrel disease surveillance and the threat posed by squirrel pox, and the pathology of middle ear disease in dogs, which is similar to “glue ear” in children. Her vision of the future is to introduce molecular techniques in pathology and microbiology, in order to take diagnostic investigation at Easter Bush to the next level.