The American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) has announced the results of the election to choose a new president-elect and two new members of the ACVS Board of Regents, and one of the new leaders is Dr. Tim Lescun, BVSc, MS, PhD, DACVS, Purdue Veterinary Medicine professor and interim head of the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences. Each year, the ACVS Nominating Committee submits a proposed slate of candidates for president-elect, one large animal regent, and one small animal regent to the ACVS Board of Regents for approval, and the approved slate is forwarded to the membership for a vote. The outcome of the election was announced October 23 at the 2025 ACVS Diplomates’ Business Meeting that was held as part of the 2025 ACVS Surgery Summit in Seattle.
Dr. Lescun, professor of large animal surgery, was elected to serve as the new ACVS large animal regent. Dr. Lescun earned his BVSc degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 1994 and completed his residency at Purdue in 1999. He became a Diplomate of the ACVS a year later, joined the PVM faculty in 2002, and earned his PhD at Purdue in 2015. He has been involved in training 25 veterinary surgery residents, acting as program director since 2024. He also serves as director of the college’s Center for Clinical Translational Research.
Dr. Lescun has an extensive record of involvement in the ACVS. He has served on the Research Committee and the Examination Committee, including as chair of each; the ACVS Foundation Board of Trustees (six years); and most recently as chair of the Working Group to Reassess the Examination Process. He also has served as a seminar chair, abstracts reviewer, Large Animal Residents’ Forum judge (chair 2023), and as a member of the editorial review board for the Veterinary Surgery journal. Dr. Lescun sees his service to the ACVS and its members as a way of both giving back and paying forward for the legacy of the past members and the future success of the organization.
Dr. Lescun’s election to the ACVS Board of Regents coincides with another honor he received through the ACVS that also was announced at the ACVS Surgery Summit. That recognition was to become an “Honored Mentor” – a designation that is a result of past residents recognizing Dr. Lescun through donations to the ACVS foundation. Dr. Lescun shared that the Honored Mentor recognition is especially meaningful to him because it pertains to many past Purdue large animal surgery residents. Click here to view the Honored Mentor web page dedicated to Dr. Lescun.
As a Purdue faculty member, Dr. Lescun says he enjoys teaching surgery to veterinary students and residents and helping them develop their careers. He is recognized as a leader in the field of equine and translational orthopedic medicine and has pioneered a finite element analysis method to investigate the response of bone to implants such as screws in fracture repair. In his role as CCTR director, he oversees core facilities in the college that support preclinical biomedical research on campus. His clinical interests include general surgery, lameness and orthopedic disease in performance horses, orthopedic infections, and fracture fixation and his current research interests include modeling and simulation of orthopedic conditions of the horse.
Congratulations Dr. Lescun on being elected to the ACVS Board of Regents and for being recognized as an Honored Mentor!
Click here for more information about the ACVS Board of Regents election.