June 11, 2014, by Lindsay Brooke
Nottingham Vet School comes to the aid of Danni the poorly lion.
Veterinary Neurologist, Associate Professor Mike Targett, made an appearance on the CBBC series Junior Vets yesterday morning – Tuesday 10 June. He joined the Junior Vets and a team of experts to carry out a full body scan of Danni the poorly lion who suffers from a damaged spine. They wanted to find out if he will ever get better.
Mike, who is an Associate Professor in Veterinary Neurology at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at The University of Nottingham, said: “I have worked with Burgess Diagnostics, an independent company providing mobile MRI services to the veterinary profession, since they were founded in 2003. When they were asked to get involved with scanning Danni the lion at Yorkshire Wildlife Park in March 2010 I was invited along to help with the examination and acquisition and interpretation of the MR images. We went back again this year and you’ll have to watch to find out what we found.”
Mike has been using MRI in animals since the early 1990’s. He has extensive experience in interpretation of MRI images in small animal species and has previously been involved in scanning exotic patients with Burgess Diagnostics.
He said: “Alongside a teaching and administrative role at SVMS I undertake 2 days a week of clinical work seeing small animal neurology cases at Dovecote Veterinary Hospital in Castle Donington, which is one of the School’s clinical associate practices where we place final year students. Dovecote Veterinary Hospital has an in-house dedicated MRI facility which I use on a daily basis whilst in the clinic.”
The programme is available on BBC iplayer
Dr Mike Target (picture right) with Danni the lion
Mike Targett (centre)
Poor Dani… I hope he’ll get better! Scanning a lion would scare me I think, imagine if he weaks up!