Rare teaming of human and veterinary medicine saves suffering mare. This is a segment of an article that printed in the Lexington Herald-Leader on May 8, 2004, and is reproduced with the permission of the newspaper.

Not a wisp of straw is in the way as the surgeon eyes the patient waiting for the procedure.

That’s a good thing, for this physician never sees a wisp of hay or straw where he usually works: the surgery rooms at St. Joseph Hospital and his office at Commonwealth Urology.

Neither do his patients kick or bite. But on this day Dr. Stephen Woolums, whose specialty is urologic surgery, is assisting veterinarian Dr. Nathan Slovis, a specialist in internal medicine, in an unusual case at Hagyard-Davidson-McGee equine hospital.

The two are trying to help a thoroughbred mare suffering serious complications from a bladder stone. The mare, whose name the owner would not disclose, has lost one kidney and was in danger of losing the other when Slovis appealed to human medicine for help.

Click here for the rest of the article and a photograph