Surgery Facilities

The James M. Moran, Jr. Critical Care Center at New Bolton Center provides:

A state-of-the-art facility for patients suffering from all types of critical diseases, from neonates to adults. The opening of this facility in 2010 greatly increased the hospital's capacity and ability to care for critically ill patients. The specific design of the building is reminiscent of early 20th century historic buildings and is a combination of a barn and a medical hospital. Features include:

• Single-story structure with two separate wings, one for isolation patients and one for critical patients.
• The isolation wing provides a bio-secure environment and containment area for animals suffering from all types of infectious diseases. This section of the Critical Care Center allows for the safe treatment our our patients without risk of spreading disease to other animals.
• Both wings have their own procedure rooms, pharmacy area, laundry rooms, equipment storage, and equipment cleaning rooms.
• Each wing has a specialized stall with a hoist and padding for neurological or recumbent cases, multiple large stalls with dividers for mares and foals, as well as air-conditioned stalls for respiratory cases.
• Standard equipment includes ECGs, blood pressure monitors, intravenous infusion pumps, hot air blankets, oxygen and other medical gas outlets, ventilators, and specially designed stalls that allow mares to have contact with their foals without disrupting the neonate's medical care. 
• The building has an environmentally controlled air circulation system and pressurized central corridors.
• The building is also equipped with technical advances that allow for more efficient and effective care and monitoring of patients.

This innovative facility exemplifies New Bolton Center’s leading role in setting the highest standard of care in equine veterinary medicine.

The facility has become a reality primarily through a combination of state funding and as a generous gift from Elizabeth Moran, given in the memory of her son, James M. Moran, Jr. 

Named in memory of C. Mahlon Kline, the building was erected in 1975 through the generosity of his family and the C. Mahlon Kline Foundation. 

The building is home to an orthopedic surgical suite which includes a unique pool recovery system.  Dr. Jacques Jenny, considered the father of large-animal orthopedic surgery, envisioned a system where horses could emerge from anesthesia without injury. To that end, the CMK operating room at New Bolton Center’s Hospital is equipped with a monorail that runs from the operating room to the recovery pool.

Our pool-recovery system allows the disoriented animal to awaken suspended in a specially engineered harness and rubber raft. This recovery technique allows the patient to reach near full consciousness in the warm water, significantly reducing the risk of re-injuring the damaged limb. Once awake, the horse is hoisted from the raft and moved to the recovery stall where he can stand at once.

Pre-Clinical Services/Comparative Orthopedic Research Lab (PSC-CORL) is also located in the building.

The Jeffords High Speed Treadmill Facility opened in 1992 as one of the first of its kind in the country.

More than 3,000 patient evaluations have been carried out on the Jeffords Treadmill for poor performance issues such as lameness, upper and lower respiratory tract changes, cardiac disease and sub-clinical myopathy (“tying-up”).

The tailor-made treadmill offers the ability to follow up a comprehensive lameness exam for a poorly performing horse with a brief schooling test, during which the patient may have arterial catheters placed in a facial artery and an endoscope passed into the pharynx.

A typical test is run for 1600 meters at a speed designed to increase the horse’s heart rate to 200 beats per minute. The horse is then immediately taken off the treadmill and a postexercise echocardiogram is performed.

An ECG is taken before, during and after exercise, and a post-exercise bronchoalveolar lavage (endoscopic washing with sterile fluid of the lungs, allowing clinicians to examine cell samples that aid in diagnosis) is performed.

Subsequently, all of the data is taken from each test and a solution is proposed to the client to improve the performance of his or her horse.

Dedicated in 2002, the Scott Equine Sports Medicine facility is a state-of-the-art facility that consists of two diagnostic areas – one with two sets of stocks for diagnostic ultrasound and one with a single-stock space dedicated to cardiology, plus three holding stalls and a Cardiology/Ultrasound Office where studies can be examined.

The latest in high-tech ultrasound, echocardiography, EKG and radiotelemetry equipment is available, and ultrasound being used in a variety of ways to detect possible health issues in horses.

The generous space, great footing and high ceilings make it a welcoming space for patients, owners, clinicians and students.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine's New Bolton Center has long been revered as a first-class equine hospital, in part because of their pool recovery system that is designed to help horses safely come out of anesthesia.

Put into use 40 years ago, the pool was a critical innovation in equine surgical procedures that require the horse to be placed under anesthesia. While there are now several other equine hospitals with pool recovery systems, they differ fundamentally from the New Bolton Center pool.

In the other systems, the horse is partially submerged in the water and supported directly with a sling system. Because the horse and its newly repaired limb are in the water, considerable care is required to keep the surgical site dry.

In the New Bolton Center system, the horse's body and limbs are within the rubber raft, which keeps the horse's body dry.

As horses are prey animals, their first instinct when recovering from anesthesia is to stand and run, which endangers any repairs made to an injured limb. Horses that scramble after a fracture repair can overload the limb so much that the surgical repair can fail, even in a padded stall with human help during recovery.

Dr. Jacques Jenny, nicknamed the “father of equine orthopedic surgery,” created the pool-raft system in use at New Bolton that allows horses to safely regain consciousness before being asked to bear weight on a repaired limb.

The C. Mahlon Kline Orthopedic and Rehabilitation building houses both the indoor recovery pool and surgical suites at the hospital. The pool is 22 feet wide and 11 feet deep; it holds 30,000 gallons of continuously filtered, brominated water at 96 degrees F. The pool is surrounded by cantilevered deck that allows access to the horse while preventing the horse's legs from striking the wall during recovery.

The raft on which the horse is places is a six-man, U.S. Navy life raft that is modified to accommodate the horse's limbs. A rail system lifts the horse from the surgical table and into the raft and pool, then out of the pool and into a recovery stall.