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Dr. Selena Tinga, right, is presented with the Best Clinical Research Presentation Award at the 2017 American College of Veterinary Surgeons Surgery Summit. (Photo courtesy of ACVS Surgery Summit)

Small animal surgery resident receives award at national meeting

Dr. Selena Tinga, a former small animal surgery resident and current Ph.D. student at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, received the award for best clinical research presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons Surgical Summit meeting, held Oct. 10-14 in Indianapolis.

The ACVS Foundation presents the award each year during the meeting, along with others for posters and publications, to honor outstanding surgical residents-in-training. Tinga’s presentation involved research from her graduate studies focusing on cranial cruciate ligament, or CCL, disease in dogs.

Under the mentorship of UF faculty members Stan Kim, BV.Sc, Dan Lewis, D.V.M., Scott Banks, Ph.D., and others, Tinga has been researching motion in the knee joint of dogs affected by CCL disease. A common condition in dogs, the disease results in joint instability and leads to the development of painful osteoarthritis and meniscal damage.

Tinga’s work is aimed at precisely defining the motion in the knee of dogs naturally affected with CCL degeneration as well as after one of two commonly used surgical treatments compared to their normal knee, in order to determine what is occurring in the diseased state and whether knee motion can be normalized with these widespread, commonly used surgical therapies.

“We know the surgeries are pretty good at helping these pups out because they are much more comfortable after surgery, but we also know that any residual abnormal motion probably leads to osteoarthritis years down the road,” Tinga said. “We are striving to give our patients even better outcomes.”

Tinga has presented aspects of her work at the World Veterinary Orthopaedic Congress in Breckenridge, Colorado, in 2014 and at the Veterinary Orthopedic Society in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2015, where she received the award for best resident abstract presentation. She also gave the Mark S. Bloomberg Memorial Lecture as an invited speaker at the International Canine Sports Medicine Symposium in 2017 and received the college’s Charles F. Simpson Memorial Scholarship for her research efforts this past summer.