{"id":1439,"date":"2013-09-15T10:43:38","date_gmt":"2013-09-15T00:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2013-09-02T10:46:12","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T00:46:12","slug":"remembering-john-holt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1439","title":{"rendered":"Remembering John Holt"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Dr<\/a>The profession is mourning the loss of John Holt, an Australian veterinarian credited by many as the man who put small animal practice on the map.\r\n\r\nJohn graduated from Sydney University in 1954. After a brief stint as a cattle vet and a brief career in industry, John purchased St George Animal Hospital (SGAH) from Richard Boon in 1959 and developed it into a showpiece companion animal practice. He married Mary, a pharmacist, in 1960.\r\n\r\nColleague Graeme Allan said that John became a passionate advocate for small animal practice \u201cat a time when you could go to the Australian Veterinary Association conference and the word dog or cat would not be mentioned.\u201d\r\n\r\nAllan recalls a Sydney practitioner\u2019s branch meeting, attended mostly by meat inspectors and Government employees, when the conversation turned to treating squamous cell carcinoma in cats.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis person [John] popped up and asked why weren\u2019t people using colchicine because it\u2019s an anti-mitotic agent,\u201d Allan said. \u201cI\u2019d never heard of it and neither had anyone else. We thought it was pretty sophisticated.\u201d\r\n\r\nJohn\u2019s practice became known for setting the standard.\r\n\r\nThe business expanded, incorporating six practices in Sydney and employing 11 veterinarians and 56 para-veterinary staff. The practice produced eight University professors.\r\n\r\nAccording to former colleague Lindsay Hay, one of John\u2019s biggest drivers was the need for the profession to recognize small animal practice as \u201ca legitimate endeavor\u201d.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhilst it is hard to imagine, in the 1970s when I graduated the predominant view was that real vets saw real animals \u2013 which didn\u2019t include dogs and cats,\u201d Hay said. \u201cOur lecturers were very dismissive of anyone who didn\u2019t want to treat a horse or cow \u2013 the idea that you might set up a small animal practice in the suburbs was looked down on.\u201d\r\n\r\nAt its peak in the 1980s SGAH employed seven veterinarians, had its own fully equipped lab and radiology suite \u2013 including a fluoroscopy unit.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere were times in the 1970s and 1980s when up to 80 animals a day were treated in hospital and 15 surgical procedures were performed a day,\u201d Hay said. \u201cIt was not unusual to do ten speys before lunch and three orthopedics after lunch.\u201d\r\n\r\nHay said that John could be impatient at times, because he was a real doer.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe knew what he wanted and he would just get in and do it.\u201d\r\n\r\nHay said this made the practice a very exciting place to work.\r\n\r\n\u201cSurgeries were all performed with mask, gowns and gloves, and all animals were premedicated with an opioid and maintained on halothane anesthesia many years before such procedures were regarded as standard best practice. This was at a time when some vets were still doing speys on the back of toilet doors.\u201d\r\n\r\nJohn was inspired by small animal practice overseas, and wanted to share its developments with Australian colleagues. He travelled to North America on multiple occasions, acting as a visiting guest lecturer at numerous institutions including Canada\u2019s Guelph University and Washington State Veterinary School. Friendships he struck up there lead to numerous eminent veterinarians \u2013 including Steve Ettinger, Carl Osborne, Joe Bojrab and others \u2013 visiting Australia.\r\n\r\n\u201cJohn used his extensive contacts in North America to bring many speakers to Australia for conferences and workshops and made a huge contribution to veterinary education and practice standards by showing the profession what was possible at a time when small animal practice was much less sophisticated than now.\u201d\r\n\r\nTogether with like-minded practitioners, including Keith Baker, Noel Freeman and Neville Japp, Holt co-founded a group which later became the Australian Small Animal Veterinary Association.\r\n\r\nJohn financed and edited the organisation\u2019s journal, the Australian Veterinary Practitioner (AVP), and provided administrative support for the organization for many years. The first committee provided personal guarantees to support the Association\u2019s first office in Hurstville.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is difficult to see how the ASAVA would exist without John\u2019s vision and support,\u201d said Hay.\r\n\r\nFriend Henry Hirschhorn feels that John\u2019s contribution was \u201cgreatly unappreciated for the work he did for the profession in general and for small animal practice in particular.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe AVP was established following a series of rejections of articles by the Australian Veterinary Journal (AVJ).\r\n\r\n\u201cWe had submitted a set of articles to the AVJ on the grounds that they added nothing new to veterinary knowledge,\u201d Hirschhorn said. \u201cIn fact, John\u2019s article on the diagnosis and surgical correction of misplaced ureters in the dog was to my knowledge the first recorded case of its kind diagnosed and successfully corrected.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt \u2013 together with an article by Hirschhorn on the correction of anterior cruciate ligament rupture by use of the anterior tibial tendon transfer \u2013 was published in the first edition of the AVP.\r\n\r\nJohn was president of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) from 1986 to 88.\r\n\r\nJohn had a rich life outside practice, travelling the world extensively (visiting at least 65 countries), collecting art and representing Australia in the shooting team at the 1960 Rome Olympics.\r\n\r\n\u201cJohn was passionate about small animal practice,\u201d Mary said. \u201cHe loved the animals and also really enjoyed working with young people \u2013 both nurses and veterinarians.\u201d\r\n\r\nJohn received multiple awards throughout his career, including an award for meritorious service to the ASAVA, the Waltham Award for International Service to the Profession and a string of honorary memberships across a range of organizations including the American Animal Hospital Association.\r\n\r\nAccording to Mary, John\u2019s care of animals continued until his death, as he donated to numerous animal welfare groups. In later years John was a very passionate supporter of the campaign against live animal export.\r\n\r\nHe also shared his life with Rosie, adopted from the Cat Protection at seven years old with chronic renal insufficiency.\r\n\r\n\u201cOnly John would have adopted Rosie,\u201d Mary said. \u201cThe staff told us that we had to be very patient and it would take many weeks for her to settle in \u2013 they were correct. At one stage we thought she would never let us touch her but remarkably she is now the most cuddly cat you can imagine. This was due to John\u2019s patience and persistence.\u201d\r\n\r\nWSAVA President Jolle Kirpensteijn said that he had always listened to John\u2019s \u201cwise consults\u201d and that John was \u201ca pioneer who opened my heart to the global veterinary community.\u201d\r\n\r\nJohn passed away on June 24 at the age of 82 years.\r\n\r\nANNE FAWCETT\r\n\r\nPictures Mary Holt","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The profession is mourning the loss of John Holt, an Australian veterinarian credited by many as the man who put small animal practice on the map. John graduated from Sydney University in 1954. After a brief stint as a cattle vet and a brief career in industry, John purchased St George Animal Hospital (SGAH) from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[707,1273,1272,1274],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-graeme-allan","tag-in-memorium","tag-john-holt","tag-obituary"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":2,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":67,"name":"Features","slug":"features","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":68,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":63,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":67,"category_count":63,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Features","category_nicename":"features","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"The profession is mourning the loss of John Holt, an Australian veterinarian credited by many as the man who put small animal practice on the map. John graduated from Sydney University in 1954. After a brief stint as a cattle vet and a brief career in industry, John purchased St George Animal Hospital (SGAH) from Richard Boon in 1959 and..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"67":{"name":"Features","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=67"}},"tags_names":{"707":{"name":"Graeme Allan","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=graeme-allan"},"1273":{"name":"in memorium","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=in-memorium"},"1272":{"name":"John Holt","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=john-holt"},"1274":{"name":"obituary","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=obituary"}},"comments_number":"2","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}