With new technologies comes the challenge of learning to interpret them correctly. | Photo: Anne M. Eberhardt/The Horse

As a horse owner who reads about research studies and ways to treat equine conditions on a daily basis, I periodically recall my own horsey emergencies, thinking, “If we had only known then what we do now.” With today’s technologies maybe my veterinarian could have saved the gelding with wobbler syndrome we euthanized years ago. Or perhaps my old show jumper with that lingering ligament injury would have benefited from some form of regenerative medicine.

But while listening to John Walmsley, MA, VetMB, Cert. EO, Dipl. ECVS, HonFRCVS, founder of the U.K.’s Liphook Equine Hospital, recall the technological advances he’s observed over his 40 years in practice during the British Equine Veterinary Association’s 51st annual Congress, I realized something: No matter how advanced equine medicine becomes, nothing can replace the value of a basic veterinary exam or a practitioner’s skill.

In his hourlong plenary lecture Walmsley rattled off a list of veterinary conveniences we take for granted today, reminding the audience that 40 years ago equine hospitals only existed at universities, health records were paper, and there were no such things as disposable syringes or gloves, mobile phones, or the Internet. Vets didn’t have at their fingertips the diagnostic imaging options, fiber-optic techniques, or even sedation methods they do today