Denis Verwilghen

Currently Clinical Director and Senior Surgeon at the Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital, a subsidiary of the Melbourne University in Australia, Denis started his career as an equine veterinarian in private practice in Ireland and the Netherlands immediately after graduation from the University of Ghent, Belgium in 2003. With the desire to improve his skills, Denis went back to academia at the end of 2004 to become a resident in equine surgery at the University of Liege, Belgium. In 2006 he defended a master in veterinary science degree on the subject of "Osteochondrosis and its relationship with IGF-I in the Horse". In 2009 he obtained a specialist diploma (DES) in Large Animal Surgery from the University of Liege and in 2010 Denis successfully passed the exam of the European College of Veterinary Surgeons. Denis then defended his PhD in Liege about the clinical impact of developmental orthopaedic diseases in horses. In 2022 he became Diplomate of the equine section of the European Veterinary Dental College. After spending some time in Sweden as Head of the Equine Surgery Department in Uppsala University, Denis and his wife Gaby, an ECEIM and ECVECC diplomate, moved back to Belgium and started a consultancy based equine medicine and surgery service. In 2013, both took up a position of Associate Professor at the Equine Hospital of the Copenhagen University. In 2017 Denis ran his own private consultancy business, Equine-Specialists, performing peripatetic surgical and dentistry services around the globe. In February 2018, Denis became Head of the Camden Equine Centre, the equine teaching hospital of the University of Sydney where he remained for the next three years. After a short stay in Germany working as senior clinician for the Altano Group, Denis returned to Australia to take up the position of clinical director at the Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital. Denis has a broad range of publications on various aspects of equine surgery with a particular focus on asepsis research, orthopaedic biomarkers and dentistry. Denis is author or co-author of over 80 international peer reviewed scientific publications, author of 7 book chapters in surgery related books and is an active presenter at national and international congresses.