Dr. Erin Champagne of Blacksburg, Va., has returned to the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech as an assistant professor of ophthalmology in the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences.

Champagne, a seasoned ophthalmologist who was a faculty member at the college in the 1990s, will be responsible for the Veterinary Teaching Hospital's new auxiliary ophthalmology service. The supplementary service will allow the teaching hospital to manage an increased caseload in its popular ophthalmology area, freeing up clinicians to see more clients and meet referring veterinary demand.

The ophthalmology service offers a full range of diagnostic and therapeutic care for all species of animals, ranging from routine eye exams to surgery. In recent months, it has given free eye exams to service dogs and even treated a young snow leopard from Roanoke’s Mill Mountain Zoo.

Bringing more than 20 years of experience to the veterinary college, Champagne most recently filled in as an ophthalmologist at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and served as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company. She was a staff ophthalmologist for the Veterinary Specialists of Western New York in Buffalo, N.Y., for nine years.

Champagne has also held positions at the University of Missouri’s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital in Columbia, Mo.; the All Animal Eye Clinic in Cincinnati, Ohio; and the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Athens, Ga. She was an assistant professor at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine from 1992 to 1997.

A native of New Orleans, Champagne has a bachelor’s degree in medical technology and a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from Louisiana State University. She also completed an internship in small animal medicine and surgery at Texas A&M University and residencies in ophthalmology at Animal Ophthalmology Clinic in Dallas, Texas, and at Louisiana State University. She is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists.

Written by Michael Sutphin.

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