The University of Ghent School of Veterinary Medicine will award an honorary doctorate to Virginia Reef, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, ACVSMR, ECVDI, director of Large Animal Cardiology and Diagnostic Ultrasonography at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet).

Reef is scheduled to receive the award on March 18 at the university in Belgium. Ghent University awards its honorary doctorates “for scientific merit to people who have demonstrated a great merit in academic education, scientific research, and social and scientific services.”

Reef is also the Mark Whittier and Lila Griswold Allam Professor of Medicine, as well as chief of the Section of Sports Medicine and Imaging at New Bolton Center, Penn Vet’s large-animal hospital in Kennett Square.

“The techniques that she developed and uses are techniques we are using daily with horses at the clinic,” said Ghent professor Gunther Van Loon, DVM, PhD. “They are techniques we can’t imagine doing without in today’s equine medicine