Veterinary Instrumentation, one of the leading suppliers of instruments and orthopaedic implants to veterinary surgeons, announced today the Simon Award 2013 has been awarded to Geoff Skerritt.
The presentation took place yesterday as part of the annual prestigious BSAVA Award ceremony at the BSAVA Congress, the largest small animal Veterinary Congress in Europe, at Birmingham ICC.
The Simon Award is presented annually to a member of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) for outstanding contributions in the field of veterinary surgery.
Simon, a Golden Retriever owned by Mr. J. Thomas, a blind telephone operator, also became blind and had his sight restored by surgery, thus enabling him to resume his full duties as a guide dog. Mr. Thomas, in appreciation of the work and surgical skill which had made this possible, inaugurated and made this award at the 1962 BSAVA Annual Congress.
The award took the form of a bronze statuette engraved ‘Deus semper tuas manus regat’ the translation from the Latin being ‘for an outstanding feat of surgery’. The statuette was loaned to the winner for the following year.
In 2003, John Lapish, Founder and Chairman of Veterinary Instrumentation was awarded the Simon Award for his contributions in the field of Veterinary implants and instrumentation.
In that year, BSAVA decided that the original Simon statuette was too fragile to be loaned out to the award winners and would be kept permanently at BSAVA headquarters.
John Lapish, on behalf of Veterinary Instrumentation offered to restore the original and to create replicas of the statuette to be presented annually by BSAVA to the winners to keep. In addition, a further set of replicas was created and presented to past winners as a permanent recognition of their achievements.
