Veterinary anatomist and former RVC Principal wins most prestigious RCVS accolade

A former longstanding Principal of the Royal Veterinary College has won the RCVS Queen's Medal for his exceptional contributions to the professions. 

The Queen’s Medal celebrates exceptional contributions to veterinary science, practice, or service that have significantly advanced the profession and animal welfare. Awarded to just one member each year, it is the pinnacle of professional recognition within UK veterinary medicine. 

This year’s recipient is Professor Lance Lanyon for his long and distinguished career in academia that began in 1967 as a Lecturer in Anatomy at Bristol Veterinary School and included teaching at Tufts University in Massachusetts in the United States, and then the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), where he became Principal in 1989.

His nominator is Tim Skerry FRCVS, Professor Emeritus at the School of Medicine at the University of Sheffield, who said: “Lance’s career has been so impactful because he has influenced many people within and outside the profession to aspire to high goals, providing a role model for many other researchers (vets, medics and other scientists). 

“His extraordinary ability to manage and solve complex problems led to major regeneration of the RVC, developing modern research-led teaching, and increasing student numbers to fill growing needs for UK veterinary graduates. In research, Lance’s discoveries are fundamental to all today’s researchers in bone biology/osteoporosis internationally. He changed views and altered understanding profoundly and to the benefit of humans and animals.”

One of his successors as RVC Principal, Professor Stuart Reid FRCVS, supported Professor Lanyon's nomination for the Queen's Medal saying: "As Principal of the RVC from 1989 to 2004, it was his unflinching belief in the need to pursue international excellence that saw the RVC become one of the first schools outside North America to gain accreditation from the Council on Education of the AVMA [American Veterinary Medical Association]. This marked a sea change in the nature, size, reach and reputation of the RVC and UK veterinary education... and laid the foundations not only for RVC’s success, but also that of the schools that followed."