David B. Nielsen, DVM

Vice President Veterinary Medicine

Dr. David Nielsen was in general practice with special interests in general surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic and cardiac surgery, medicine and dermatology in Manhattan Beach, CA from 1976 to the early 90’s. He then focused his professional skills on and became a pioneer in veterinary dentistry. He was able to gain knowledge from specialty dentists at UCLA and became an adjunct professor of dentistry at USC gleaning valuable time-tested dental wisdom. His practice approach is common sense and positive outcome based, whilst developing new treatments that benefited his patients. Dr. Nielsen lectured on his favorite topic, veterinary dentistry, in Spain, Italy, Canada, Mexico and in all major cities in the USA.

He was an early adopter of CO2 laser surgery, becoming technically highly skilled. Dr. Nielsen then became a valued national lecturer and trained veterinarians to also become proficient.

He served on the first veterinary board for Novartis Animal Health. For 14 years, he was the Continuing Education Director for the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association. Additionally, he chose 5 experts per year to give talks to the world’s largest local veterinary association of over 1000 members. Dr. Nielsen likes to quip that he is average in intelligence but is a very good brain picker and learner.  He received the prestigious H. Don Mahan Award and the California Academy of Veterinary Medicine’s Continuing Education Award.

Dr. Nielsen co-authored a research paper on “Clindamycin/Periodontitis in Dogs” with Dr. Jorgen Slots, Head of Periodontics at USC in LA and with UC Irvine on “CO2 Laser Therapy of Pulpal Exposures” in Lasers in Surgery and Medicine, a human medical journal. He also has shared improvements for the best root canal sealer with Dr. Ali Nasseh, Head of Post Graduate Endodontics at Harvard, regarding reducing the products’ viscosity to enable easier treatment.

Dr. Nielsen received his Doctorate from Kansas State University Veterinary School and formerly was Board Certified by the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners.