WSU Equine Surgeon Named Distinguished Professor

PULLMAN, Wash.—Professor Robert K. Schneider, an internationally known equine orthopedic surgeon at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, is the current recipient of the four-year Robert B. McEachern Distinguished Professorship in Equine Medicine.

Schneider is the immediate past-president of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. He is also a previous recipient of the WSU Faculty Member of the Year Award from the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association. 

Schneider’s specialty is surgery of bones and joints of horses, especially equine athletes, performance and show horses and valuable breeding stock. The volume of his caseload in Pullman is responsible in part for the college serving western Washington residents, with a special horse transportation service to and from the west side about every two weeks.

“Bob Schneider contributes a large, vital lameness and orthopedic surgical caseload and consultation service surgical to the WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital,” said Warwick Bayly, dean of the college and a past recipient of the same distinguished professorship. “This provides unmatched service for horses and their owners as well as an extraordinary learning environment for WSU veterinary students, residents and interns. To honor his work and abilities with the college’s only distinguished professorship is very fitting.”

The professorship was established with a $250,000 private gift from Robert B. and Margaret McEachern (pronounced mek-EK-earn) in 1995. The intent of the couple’s gift was “to make WSU’s educational program in equine medicine even stronger and to further the college’s reputation for quality research in this field.”

The state formerly matched endowments like that made by the McEacherns, bringing the total value to $500,000. The professorship award includes funding from a portion of the endowment interest income worth more than $26,000 annually for four years.

Robert McEachern, a 1937 WSU graduate, was a prominent Pacific Northwest construction executive from Redmond. He developed a fondness for horses as a young man while he worked as a cowboy in Canada. He served on the WSU Board of Regents from 1981-88 and was president of the board for several years. A founding member of the WSU Foundation, he died in 1991.

Margaret, a WSU alumna from the class of 1938, shared her husband’s passion for WSU and horses.

“I’m honored to be recognized with such a prestigious distinguished professorship,” Schneider said.  “My goal is to continue to provide the finest surgical services for horses and their owners who travel to WSU.”

“We’ll use the financial support from the McEachern professorship to train a resident veterinarian in equine sports medicine,” Schneider said. “Our goal is to provide additional help for clinical cases, develop even more expertise using magnetic resonance imaging or MRI to evaluate lameness, and establish a perpetual post-veterinary training program that will advance diagnosis and treatment of horses with performance-limiting lameness.”