Dr. Jim Lattimer was raised on a dairy and row crop farm in southern Idaho where he attended the College of Southern Idaho. He received his B.S. in Veterinary Science and then his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Washington State University in 1975. 

Following 2 years in private mixed and small animal practice in northern Washington and western Idaho, he was accepted into a Veterinary Radiology Residency program at Colorado State University which he completed in 1980 in combination with a Master of Science degree in Radiological Sciences.  He also achieved Diplomate status in the American College of Veterinary Radiology in diagnostic radiology that year. 

In 1996 he was awarded Diplomate status by the ACVR affiliate in Radiation Oncology.  He remains an active member in both of these organizations as well as the Radiological Society of North America and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. 

He joined the faculty of the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery at the University of Missouri in August 1980 as a diagnostic and therapeutic radiologist and has continued in that position to this day.  He currently holds the rank of associate professor in that department with adjunct status in the Nuclear Sciences and Engineering and Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Institutes. 

He is an author or co-author or more than 40 refereed publications in the fields of veterinary imaging and radiation therapy. His current research interests lie in the area characterizing beam modifications methods, inhomogeneity effects, and radiopharmaceutical treatment of osteosarcoma and prostate carcinoma. He is a clinical radiologist and radiation oncologist currently serving as section head of Radiology and Radiation Oncology for MU’s Veterinary Health Center and the Mizzou Animal Cancer Center, as well as consulting radiation oncologist for the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Kansas State University.  As a faculty member he also teaches part or all of 6 different classes to undergraduate, professional and graduate students and serves as the leader for residency programs in both diagnostic imaging and radiation oncology.

Away from work, he is dedicated to his wife and two grown children and is an avid proponent of swimming for fitness, an amateur woodworker and a lover of animals in general.