Hospital and Ambulatory Internship

Philosophy of Internship: We believe that an internship should allow our new veterinarians the opportunity to increase their skill level, case knowledge and have continued exposure to all areas of equine practice to adequately prepare them for a successful career in private practice or pursing a residency position. We aim to provide our interns with a supportive environment to work with mentors, work independently and work as a team. Throughout the year, interns will gain more primary case responsibility but will always have a senior clinician available as backup for consultation and assistance. The goal of this year is to provide a well-rounded hospital and ambulatory internship that will instill the confidence needed to become a successful equine practitioner.

Internship Duties: Our interns will rotate through hospital and ambulatory rotations throughout the year (Surgery/Dr Sutter; Emergency-Hospital/Dr Klein; ambulatory and some anesthesia rotations). Interns will provide ambulatory services for clients including but not limited to routine health care, medicine and emergency workups, with increasing primary case responsibility as they advance in their internship. While on hospital rotations, the intern will scrub into all surgeries for the week and provide post-surgical care and assessment for these patients, as well as assist practitioners with lameness, radiology, anesthesiology, reproduction, advanced imaging, video endoscopy and laboratory testing.  Interns will rotate through an emergency/hospital rotation, which will include triaging emergency cases, scrubbing into surgeries and postoperative management of critical cases. Each in house case is assigned to an intern who is primarily responsible for the case and is overseen by a senior clinician.

Practice Information: Kentucky Equine Hospital is located in Simpsonville, KY – the heart of horse country and on the outskirts of Louisville. Our hospital was founded by Dr. Wes Sutter in 2020, with the internship established shortly thereafter. Our practice consists of 6 full-time veterinarians, including two DACVS surgeons and two ACVSMR boarded practitioners, as well as three veterinarians certified in chiropractic and/or acupuncture. Our facilities include our surgery and diagnostic imaging building (new in 2025) that includes two surgical suites, Calibra CT unit, nuclear scintigraphy and Pet scan, standing surgery suite, and lameness/imaging area.  Our other hospital building has one surgery suite with an induction/recovery stall, standing surgery suite, outpatient area and MRI.  We have three barn areas with a total of 35 stalls.  In hospital, elective surgeries are performed multiple days weekly along with advanced imaging cases and lameness.  We have an increasing emergency caseload with the completion of our new building in 2025 and a large ambulatory case load. Our caseload covers a variety of disciplines including racehorses, eventing, show jumping, dressage, Western performance, saddle seat show horses and pleasure horses. Dr. Erica Tolar, DACVO also maintains her equine ophthalmology patients out of our hospital and provides advanced ophthalmologic procedures, surgeries and hospitalized care.  Dr. Tom Seahorn, DACVIM consults and works up internal medicine cases in the hospital as needed (usually at least a weekly case).