Published: 25 Mar 2025 | Last Updated: 25 Mar 2025 11:50:06

The Royal Veterinary College’s (RVC) Prof Richard Meeson, Head of Small Animal Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Orthopaedics, has been announced as a winner of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) awards.

In a ceremony that took place on Friday 21^st March, Professor Meeson was presented with The Simon Award for his outstanding contributions to veterinary surgery. This includes his work in shaping clinical practice to improve patient outcomes, actively advancing knowledge in feline orthopaedics, and his commitment to veterinary education and research.

The Simon Award was inaugurated in 1962 in honour of a Golden Retriever owned by Mr J. Thomas, a blind telephone operator, that also became blind and had his sight restored by surgery, thus enabling him to resume his full duties as a guide dog. The award is dedicated to contributions to the advancement of all small animal surgery in its widest context, including soft tissue surgery, anaesthesia, orthopaedics and surgical aspects of neurology, ophthalmology, diagnostic imaging and exotics.

Professor Meeson has worked in the RVC’s Queen Mother Hospital for Animals since 2007. The hospital offers one of the longest established and leading veterinary orthopaedic services worldwide, led by Richard over the past six years alongside the largest group of boarded specialist surgeons of any UK institution working in orthopaedics. 

Alongside the team, Professor Meeson tackles an extensive range of conditions in dogs and cats, including key-hole joint surgery, ligament and tendon surgery, limb deformity work and joint replacement. Working with the Emergency and Critical Care Service in the hospital, they have extensive experience in complex trauma and are developing minimally invasive fracture repair solutions. The orthopaedic services both follow and develop the evidence base for veterinary orthopaedics, including using their gait assessment treadmill support for accurate assessment and monitoring of clinical disease.

On receiving The Simon Award, Richard Meeson, Head of Small Animal Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Orthopaedics at the RVC, said:

"I am deeply honoured and grateful to have received the Simon Award from BSAVA. This recognition is a testament to the incredible team I have had the privilege of working with, as well as the inspiring and supportive colleagues, mentors, teachers, students and friends at the Royal Veterinary College."

Professor Meeson advocates a ‘One Medicine’ approach - the interconnected approach to human and animal medicine - recognising their shared diseases, treatments, and health systems. He published a landmark paper in Nature Reviews Rheumatology, developing understanding of the similarity between dog and human osteoarthritis, which remains one of the highest-ranked papers in the journal. This remains an active current area of research, developing understanding and early diagnosis of osteoarthritis through advanced imaging and artificial intelligence.

Professor Meeson lectures nationally and internationally and has published more than 100 papers and abstracts on a variety of topics relating to veterinary orthopaedics. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and one of a handful of vets to receive MRC Fellowship funding, which led to a PhD in stem cell biology at the internationally renowned Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science, UCL.

Notes to Editors

For more information please contact:

• Jasmin De Vivo devivo@plmr.co.uk or rvc@plmr.co.uk
• Press Line: 0800 368 9520

About the RVC

• The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) is the UK's largest and longest established independent veterinary school and is a Member Institution of the University of London. 
• It is one of the few veterinary schools in the world that hold accreditations from the RCVS in the UK (with associated recognition from the AVBC for Australasia, the VCI for Ireland and the SAVC for South Africa), the EAEVE in the EU, and the AVMA in the USA and Canada. 
• The RVC is ranked as the top veterinary school in the world in the QS World University Rankings by subject, 2025. 
• The RVC offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in veterinary medicine, veterinary nursing and biological sciences. 
• The RVC is a research-led institution, with 88% of its research rated as internationally excellent or world class in the Research Excellence Framework 2021. 
• The RVC provides animal owners and the veterinary profession with access to expert veterinary care and advice through its teaching hospitals and first opinion practices in London and Hertfordshire.