Nathaniel "Nat" White, DVM, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS, of Leesburg, Va., has stepped down as director of Virginia Tech’s Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center after nine years of service to the equine community. He will assist with the transition in leadership and continue to contribute to the mission of the center as a professor of surgery.

White had many achievements as director of the center, among which were the authorship of the definitive textbooks on colic and surgery, the recruitment of key faculty and staff to expand the center’s clinical and research excellence, the formation of the Veterinary Advisory Board, and the development of three strategic plans. White also played a pivotal role in the successful containment of an equine herpes outbreak at the center in 2007.

David Hodgson, BVSc, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, FACSM, professor and head of the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, has been named interim executive director of the Equine Medicine Center, effective May 1. Harold McKenzie, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, associate professor of medicine at the center, has been named the interim associate director and will run the center’s day-to-day operations under Hodgson’s supervision.

"Drs. Hodgson, McKenzie, and White will work as a team to ensure a seamless and gradual transition to the interim leadership and to make sure that service to the equine community remains at the highest possible level," said Gerhardt Schurig, DVM, MS, PhD, dean of the veterinary college