Dr. Hadley Gleason is a clinical assistant professor of small animal surgery.
Tell us about your background.
I went to veterinary school at the University of Pennsylvania with the intention of becoming an equine orthopedic surgeon, to which end I completed a rotating internship in large animal medicine and surgery at UPenn’s New Bolton Center.
After realizing that a lot of advanced and minimally invasive procedures were not accessible in large animal medicine, I switched focus to small animals and completed a rotating internship in small animal medicine and surgery at UPenn and a surgical specialty internship at Gulf Coast Veterinary Specialists in Houston, Texas.
I went on to complete my residency in small animal surgery at the University of Illinois in 2020 and have not left since!
How did you become interested in small animal surgery?
I love making immediate impact in the patient’s condition or comfort. It is so fulfilling when a trauma patient can walk out of the hospital and back to their family after a fracture repair. I also love that small animal surgery is such a rapidly expanding specialty. There are procedures that we are performing now that had been unheard of even 10 years ago.
What are your special interests?
I am particularly interested in minimally invasive orthopedic techniques such as arthroscopy and fracture repair. I also love teaching orthopedics to our veterinary students and providing them with the baseline musculoskeletal knowledge they will need throughout their career.
Tell us about some of your favorite cases.
One of my favorite cases was an orthopedics patient who had severe bilateral angular limb deformities, or abnormally shaped forelimbs, that made it hard for him to walk and caused significant elbow and wrist pain. He was lucky to have a very kind and committed owner. We performed two major surgeries 3 months apart to cut his bones, straighten them, and stabilize them with bone plates. He is currently walking normally and living his best life with minimal pain!
