Dr. Jen Bevilacqua graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine in 1999. She became an associate at an exclusively equine practice in Monmouth County, NJ, where she enjoyed ambulatory practice on the racetrack and farms. Over the next eight years, she practiced preventative medicine, sports medicine, reproductive medicine, and neonatal medicine for racehorse, performance horse, and pleasure horse clientele.
Through several years of exposure to alternative therapies by her mentor, she learned how to appropriately apply Complementary and Alternative Veterinary Medicine (CAVM) therapies, which seemed to offer an extra edge in the areas of diagnosis, performance, rehabilitation, and overall health.
In January of 2006 when her own horse became very ill, she left no diagnostic test, medication, or specialist untapped. It was a situation many horse owners know all too well: desperation encouraging utilization of any therapy available to save their horse. After conventional medicine produced no results, she turned to acupuncture, massage, and other complementary therapies to treat Sidney. She was certain she was losing him.
Dramatically, during the acupuncture treatment, he awakened, immediately began eating after two days off feed, and his personality returned. After witnessing this, along with several other instances where alternative therapies had accomplished what Conventional Medicine could not, she decided to purposefully integrate adjunctive therapies into her practice of medicine. It became clear to her that the medicine of the future would be integrative, taking the strengths of Conventional Medicine and combining it with scientifically and clinically-supported CAVM as part of a holistic approach to treating patients.
In September of 2007, she became an associate at an equine ambulatory practice in Southwestern Vermont, where she continued to practice both Conventional Medicine and CAVM. In 2008, she committed to offering only CAVM Therapies with the philosophy of integrating medicines when she established The Integrated Equine, LLC. She has remained active in continuing her education of Conventional Medicine and CAVM, including traveling to China in 2010 for the first international conference on Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine. She also maintains active memberships in the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association of Equine Practitioners, and the Vermont Veterinary Medical Association, including her involvement in the Governmental Relations Committee. She has also enjoyed her role in the AERC community as a veterinary control judge, as well as her time as an adjunct professor in the Equine Studies program at Vermont Technical College. In 2016, she embarked on the journey of earning a Master’s degree in TCVM from the first program in the United States to offer such a degree. She enjoys distance running in her free time.