The Northside Veterinary Hospital in Hillsdale smells like dog, cats prance around the check-in desk like they own the place, and the ladies in the front could not love it more. But this neighborhood pet hospital does more than clean teeth and administer vaccinations.
Dr. Jeffrey Wood opened his practice in Hillsdale in 1996, six years after graduating from Michigan State University with his doctorate in veterinary medicine. Contrary to popular belief, admission into veterinary school is very competitive. The graduating class of MSU’s veterinary college for 2013 is 403 students. The medical college will graduate 732. According to U.S. News and World Report, MSU is one of the top ten veterinary schools in the United States.
Veterinary assistant and Hillsdale alumna Roni Jo Roth plans to attend MSU’s veterinary school next term. Roth began working at Northside during her junior year of high school and kept the job through her college career.
“I kept the job to get experience,” Roth said. “I’ve been working to save money until I get up to Lansing.”
According to Wood, it is not uncommon for veterinary students like Roth or veterinarians like Wood to have their profession overlooked. But recent strides in medical technology have qualified veterinarians in the public eye.
“The perception of the vet is changing,” Wood said. “We’re starting to get more credit. Twenty years ago I had clients that asked if I had to go to school for this.”
Although caring for domestic pets like dogs and cats bring appreciated business, Wood says that veterinarians are indispensable to society in areas such as disease control and the care of food supply. According to the Center of Disease Control, around 75 percent of recently emerging infectious diseases are from animals. Zoonotic diseases such as the swine flu pandemic in 2009 required the counsel of veterinarians in finding vaccinations, contagiousness, treatments, etc.
In times of crisis, it is the veterinarian who plays a substantial role in disease control. Veterinarians are arguably the experts in infectious diseases. In addition to zoonotic diseases, veterinarians also play a large role in monitoring the world’s food supply such as meat inspection to avoid E-coli or mad cow disease breakouts.
On the local level, Wood has never been called in to monitor meat or diagnose a strain of the swine flu. In 2001, however, he was contacted by the company Acell, Inc. and was asked to embark on a project that no one would expect of a neighborhood pet doctor.
“I had the reputation that ‘I was the guy who would try anything,’” Wood said. “I was the last resort.”
Acell asked Wood if he would be interested in researching regenerative medicine, a term coined by Acell. Acell wanted to regrow and rebuild tissues. Wood agreed, and began his base work in the clinical trials. The method was minimally invasive and took off in the medical world.
“The human product is doing very well,” Wood said. “Soldiers are coming back from Iraq and regrowing muscle tissue.”
Acell’s extracellular matrix (ECM) product – made from a pig bladder – has enabled soldiers to grow nerves, muscles, and ordinary tissues that initially didn’t exist. In some contexts, ECM is referred to as “pixie dust” for its seemingly magical properties and has saved soldiers from amputations because of the regrowth of nerve and tissue.
“[ECM] gives us another approach to medicine,” Wood said. “Regrowing tissues is minimally invasive versus amputations and cutting tissue out. This changes the things we do.”
In addition to working at Northside Veterinary Hospital, Wood currently sits on Acell’s Scientific Advisory Board and has given two lectures in Japan on regenerative medicine. He has used the tissue-engineering-based treatment in more than 200 cases to date and receives clientele from all over the Midwest.
“We have a sophisticated facility for Hillsdale,” Wood said. “We have all the bells and whistles. Anything you’d expect from a bigger city you see here at Hillsdale.”
