It’s conference season!

WVAC2020 is coming to an end but it’s been a huge honour to assist the WVA and New Zealand Veterinary Assoc in keeping the show on the road. The Coronavirus crisis forced the cancellation of the physical event in Auckland at very short notice and we had only a number of weeks to work with NZVA to turn it around into a 3-week festival ” Vet Professionals of the World Unite” It’s been tiring but huge fun to work with NZVA, WVA, the speakers, sponsors and, of course, the delegates to turn this into such an incredible learning experience for everyone.

Of course, it helped that we had the experience of running virtual conferences over the last seven years. My team has done amazingly well and we will enjoy our weekend rest!
However, as they say, no rest for the wicked! We have been inundated with people requesting help to take their conferences online. Natalia Strokowska is an excellent exotics vet in Poland who was due to run a rabbit conference mid-May. We’ve turned it around and I’m sure it will be excellent. 

Burgess, who are such great advocates of rabbit welfare have sponsored it to help keep the cost of tickets down below £100. I’m very appreciative of all the great support which Burgess gives to our rabbit aficionados.

We have two absolutely fabulous speakers, Charly Pignon and Elisabetta Mancinelli.

Charly Pignon graduated in 2005 from Alfort National Veterinary School (France) and did his veterinary thesis on a wildlife conservation project in Cambodia. Then he worked in the wildlife rescue centre in Alfort and Paris Zoo (la Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes).

In 2009, Charly Pignon completed an Exotic Medicine Internship at Tufts University. When he came back to France he created the Exotic Medicine Service in Alfort National Veterinary School.

Charly is a Diplomate of the European College of Zoological Medicine (Small Mammals), a board member of Yaboumba (French association for continuing education in exotic and wild animals) and president of the Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarian. His current field of research are ear surgeries and orthopedic surgeries in small mammals, and blood transfusion in ferrets.

Elisabetta Mancinelli graduated from the University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy, in 2002. Her interest in exotics became clear shortly after her graduation, anticipating a career mainly based on non-conventional animal medicine and surgery.

After a small animal focused internship, she’s been working solely with exotics since 2003. She undertook an externship in France, mainly based on reptile medicine and completed an externship program at the “Angell Animal Memorial Hospital” in Boston (USA), focusing on exotic animal medicine and surgery.

In 2007, she moved to UK where she initially worked in private practice and wildlife charities. In 2009, Elisabetta started the first European College of Zoological Medicine (ECZM) Residency in Small Mammal Medicine, which she completed at The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Edinburgh. From September 2010, she has held an RCVS Certificate in Zoological Medicine. In 2014, she obtained the ECZM Diploma, Specialty “Small Mammal Medicine and Surgery”.

She currently leads the exotic department at Highcroft Veterinary Referrals, Bristol (UK).

Both have spoken for The Webinar Vet before and are truly amazing.

From the 16th we will be doing several Facebook lives so that you can quiz the speakers about their webinars. We have pre-recorded the webinars and these will be available from Saturday, 16th May.

The programme is as follows:

• Managing the snuffly rabbit

• CT in diagnosing rabbit respiratory diseases: interesting cases

• How to approach the neurologic rabbit and practical neurological examination

• The rabbit friendly clinic

• Soft tissue surgery

• Orthopaedics and fracture management

• Dermatology and pododermatitis

• Practical analgesia and anaesthesia

• Ear diseases (including the surgery)

• Overview of reproductive tract problems in pet rabbits

• Cardiopulmonary resuscitation

I’m really looking forward to this next week and it’s not too late to buy a ticket if you want to interact with the speakers via Facebook live!

The Rabbit Medicine Conference is kindly sponsored by Burgess Pet Care.

Next week, we also have the Royal Canin Gastrointestinal Conference: Make Every Mouthful Count which again should have been a physical conference. This is free to attend and will be an excellent day

During this one day event, we welcome a number of highly recognised speakers, including Cecilia Villaverde BVSc, PhD, DACVN, DECVCN and Katie McCallum BVM&S PGCertSAM DipECVIM-CA AFHEA MRCVS to discuss topics from working up the gastrointestinal patient to the importance of nutrition for the critical care patient. Scientific speakers from Royal Canin will also provide informative updates on our range of Gastrointestinal Tract diets.

The event starts at 9am on Wednesday 20th May 2020 and runs until 4.30pm, and will be equivalent to 1 day of CPD.

I do hope that if you are reading this post, you are keeping well. We are living in very strange and challenging times. I keep positive and try to make sure I am eating well and exercising and playing the guitar which I do on FB live most days on my personal FB page. Some people seem to like it! If you do need any support, feel free to contact me on [email protected] or get in touch with Vetlife or make use of our wellbeing suite of webinars which are free to watch until end May. So many people have loved these so if you haven’t tried them, give them a go!

Wishing you a great weekend and next week
Love,
Anthony