Staff

Denise L, McNitt, DVM

Dr. McNitt (Denise) was born in Lansing, Michigan and grew up in the country outside the capital city. She was in 4-H for many years and showed her Quarterhorse “Big Red Wagnor” at local shows. She read every book on horses that was in her middle school library and her favorite horse was Man O’ War.

Denise started working at a local small animal hospital when she was 16, and was soon in love with Veterinary Medicine. After graduating from Michigan State undergrad she started Veterinary School in 1979! As a freshman and sophomore she worked every break as a vet tech in the Equine unit. As a junior she started working for Dr. John Stick a surgeon on staff there and did research with his group on the effects of choke on acid base balance and esophageal surgery. She was awarded the Large Animal Clinic Proficiency Award as a senior. She then accepted a year long internship at Rochester Equine Clinic – she was their first intern and worked many long hours in surgery and with outpatients there.

Dr. McNitt has much of her career focused on performance horse medicine, lameness and reproduction. She has worked on horses from all disciplines and believes that the knowledge gained from one is often helpful to understand another. Whether she worked at racetracks or dressage training barns she developed a practiced eye for lameness and other performance problems. Since starting to breed her own horses in 1993, Denise has become experienced in mare reproductive problems – as area she once considered herself to be weak in. She considers the ~40 horses that she and her husband, Kevin Switzer, own to be a great proving ground for hew therapies and products and often uses her experiences there to help her clients.

Dr. McNitt and her husband also own and operate KDK Standardbreds where they breed, raise, train and race in the Maine Sire Stakes. She and her husband and sister love to trail ride – either in the country around Cumberland or hear their camp in Rangley.

Martha K. Hart, DVM

A native of Maine, Martha was raised in the small town of Whitefield. Her interest in horses and large animals started at a young age. Her grandparents bred and raised Morgan horses throughout her life, and she has owned a variety of horses from retired Standardbred race horses to hunter jumpers.

Martha graduated from the University of Maine, Orono in 2004 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Animal and Veterinary Sciences and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology. She then attended veterinary school at Ross University, School of Veterinary Medicine located on the island of St. Kitts in the West Indies. She spent three years of her veterinary education in the Caribbean and then spent her clinical training year at North Carolina State University, College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh, NC. She graduated from Ross University in January of 2009.

Martha’s wishes and greatest expectations for being an Equine Veterinarian in the state of Maine were granted when she joined the Blackstrap Hill Veterinary Clinic family in March of 2009. Martha has become heavily involved in race track medicine and traditional farm calls. Her special interests are in equine and small ruminant routine preventative care and medicine, dentistry, nutrition, neonatal/foal medicine and lameness.