Hello, Anthony Chadwick from the webinar vet. Welcoming you to another episode of vet chat. Really interesting today.
We have three very august members of the profession who've agreed to come to talk a little bit about the RCVS review all around telehealth, telemedicine. We'll go over some terms later on. Very fortunate to have Liz Barton from VET CT.
Wolfgang Donor, who's a practitioner but also is the past president just gone of the Carver. And then Jessica May, who works for PetsApp and has in the past been a very good equine surgeon as well, and I'm sure could potentially go back to that as well. And yeah, I'm sure we can bring this into the discussion and debate, all the possibilities of carrying on consulting.
Physically or remotely, so perhaps before we start, I've obviously given a very brief introduction there, Liz, but do you wanna go first just telling us a little bit more about yourself and, and then Wolfgang and then Jessica? Yeah, thanks for the introduction, Anthony, and for inviting us to vet chat. Yeah, so I'm Liz Barton.
I graduated in 2004, and I've enjoyed a varied clinical career, everything from mixed practise, small animal internship, emergency critical care work, shelter medicine, etc. I started diversifying in the mid 20 teens, just becoming increasingly concerned about some of the well-being issues in the profession. And co-founded Well that as a well-being initiative to increase access to well-being tools for veterinary teams.
And from that, I've ended up doing a lot around event management, PR marketing, and developed a whole range of non-clinical skills, and also co-founded vet moms, I got into a bit of community management discussing issues around parenting in the profession. And I've had numerous positions on various boards, and all of this led me to my current role as head of communications for VECT, which is a teleradiy and teleconsulting provider worldwide. And most recently, I've enjoyed becoming part of the working group of the Virtual Veterinary Care Association, European affiliate, looking to provide advice and guidance on the application of virtual care.
Wolfgang Puts me to shame, gosh. It's amazing being on a panel together with somebody like listen, Jessica, and obviously you, Anthony, obviously. So the, well, my name is Wolfgang Dune.
I, went to vet school in Hanover and then also a little bit in Oslo in Norway, but then decided to go to the UK where I worked first for 6 years as an assistant vet and then opened my own clinic which I ran for about 20 years. Until I sold it and started a new company and now I'm doing internationalloing in Scandinavia in the UK and in the German speaking countries and also. Business advice and I'm also involved in online consultations predominantly in Germany and so I find that very, very interesting area.
Alongside my clinical work, I was first very involved in the BSAVA, the regional BSAVA, then became the UK representative at FIAA, the Federation of European Companion Animal Veterinary Associations. Of which I was from 2017 to 2019. The president, I'm now the senior vice president, and, yes, and that gives me a little bit of a sort of international perspective at the whole virtual veterinary care aspect.
Wolfgang, you are definitely not out of place as a past president of the Carver as probably one of the most travelled veterinarians. In the world, and of course the fantastic thing that you did about a year ago, raising so much money for the situation in Ukraine, which obviously we helped you a little bit with at Webinar that was an amazing achievement, an amazing idea of yours. So, so do not feel out of place.
Well, I know, no. No, no, no, not that, but, but, but it's nevertheless, sort of, it's, I think what, what is very important and that is also something that your work does, it's to highlight of that veterinary medicine is not a national issue, it's an international issue and also sort of, it's not only veterinary medicine, there are other things happening. In the world that we need to address, I mean, the war in Ukraine is one example.
Stray dogs, for example, unhealthy breeding, all these things are issues. These are global issues which we have to address. And if we get an opportunity to help or to change things, then we should take it.
I think it's also a beautiful thing, you know, what you said, there very much is a brotherhood and sisterhood of vets throughout the world, you know, we sense that in Orlando last week at the VMX conference. It, it is a really nice tight knit friendly profession, isn't it? We are, we are a small profession, but a big family.
We are, . Jessica, follow that. I love that.
Thank you, Wolfgang. It's always incredible to see all of the things that everyone's managing to fit into their veterinary careers. It's fantastic.
So my name's Jessica May. I have been qualified now for 10 years and spent some time in mixed practise and equine practise before spending 4 years in telemedicine. And more recently I've joined for PetsApp as a customer success manager helping practises to implement and integrate digital health tools into their client care journeys, and I've helped recently by Liz and Wolfgang, Rich Casey and Pete Wedderburn.
We have formed a small working party to set up the European affiliate of the Virtual Veterinary Care Association. Which I think we will talk about more later on. Well, actually it'd be a very good time, I think, to, to start with that.
Perhaps tell us a little bit about the history of the Virtual Veterinary Care Association. I know I I think I'm right in saying it started in America. Obviously you're now bringing in this branch into Europe.
So tell us a little bit about that journey, Jessica. So the VVCA was founded in 2020 to help advocate best practises, develop community, share information, data, educational resources around virtual care provision in veterinary practise, and they followed in the esteemed footsteps of the American Telemedicine Association, the ATA led by Professor Joe Kveda. Now the founding board, including Mark Cushing.
In the US have brought the organisation a long way in those last few years, and that's obviously been very pivotal in this the experience we've all had in providing remote care in the last few years. So they've now got a board, we've got a Canadian affiliate as well, led by Dr. Sharon Quinn, and we're hoping to be able to take this message and conversation and build collaboration globally around.
Digital health and veterinary care provision. Fantastic, Jessica. I think perhaps before we really dive into a bit more of the detail of the RCVS review and, and how we all sort of perceive that it'd be great to go over some definitions as well, so.
Obviously telemedicine in a sense is not a new thing. All of us have probably given advice over telephones, etc. Before, but it, it really is different aspects of that, how, how, you know, the, the, the care is sort of positioned with vets, with clients, but also peer to peer telemedicine as well.
So perhaps Liz, obviously somebody who is providing telemedicine services. To peers, perhaps explain to us that terminology, but perhaps some of the other terminology, just so that people are clear, cos this is a, a new area and I think we are all, except for the experts, potentially a bit confused by all the jargon as well. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, there's any telly in front of just about any other word and it's it's the sort of remote provision of that service, but, oddly enough, teleconsulting, which is the branch that VET CT is involved with, is actually specifically between veterinary professionals, so. You know, we have a team of over 200 veterinary specialists who provide peer advice and support to veterinary teams in practise. So that is teleconsulting.
It's specifically vet to vets, not vet to pet owner. And also teleradiy again is the remote reading and reporting of, of imaging, diagnostic imaging. But you know, these things can, can kind of work really nicely in concert to provide connected care to patients.
So for example, we referenced the war in Ukraine recently, and the Galaxy Vets Foundation, based in, in the US and Canada, actually set up a telemedicine service pretty much overnight to provide free advice and support to the people and pets and animals of Ukraine. And BetsyT provides a backup teleconsulting service to those telemedicine providers. So, you know, if they have complex cases, and obviously, you know, many veterinary clinics have had to close, many are without provisions, etc.
So, you know, by being able to provide that vet to pet and peer support vet to vet as well, we're actually being able to support, you know, animal care and welfare. In Ukraine and then alongside that they're also sort of backing that up with sending over physical resources as well. So it's a really nice example of where both remote and, you know, the sending of provisions, the sending of medications, etc.
Is all sort of working together to, to provide care. I may hand over to, just so you don't end up hearing me talk for ages, but I might hand over to Jessica, Jessica and Wolfgang to give some other definitions around telehealth, telemedicine, tele triage. Do you want to jump in, Jessica, with one or two of those definitions if we forget any Wolfgang can .
Can add in as necessary. Absolutely, as Liz mentioned, telly can be added to many, many things. So in the essence of being concise, I think what what we do see is quite a significant difference between the US and the UK and other countries in terms of how well these areas have been defined, and in the US they very much have defined these.
Different streams of telehealth, telehealth being the overarching terminology under which everything else sits, and in the US they also have what's called the VCPR or the veterinarian Client-patient relationship, which is a very helpful term to help practitioners and vet teams to understand their responsibilities in care provision. We obviously have the terminology of undercare in the UK, and I think given the changes that have just taken place, I think other countries will be looking to the UK as some form of a benchmark as we have been looking at the US for comparative reasons in the past few years. But I think definitions are very important because they will help us to implement telehealth in safe and effective ways, and it will help us to understand what the The limitations or the boundaries of those different areas are.
Mhm. Jessica, after this under care review, and perhaps we'll pull Wolfgang into this, in some ways we are probably ahead of other countries in Europe and the USA in giving some sort of certainty to what's going on, and maybe we need to talk about the under care review because my understanding is the situation in the USA is quite fragmented and different states have different rules and so on, so it can be. A bit confusing state to state.
It's very interesting to look at the US because in a nutshell, every state has different regulations and a number of different regulatory levels, including the law, and it's important for practitioners in each state with their licence to understand what that state does and doesn't allow. And obviously the VCPR is central to determining that, but the states are also undergoing constant evolution. Could I ask Jessica that we change the VCPR acronym to the VCPR or VCPER, because when I held the veterinary green discussion forum recently at the Nature Reserve in In Preston, Liz was, was at that er gathering.
We talked all about the veterinary client patient relationship, it's that beautiful triangle we talk about, isn't it? But actually now with our environmental crisis, is it appropriate to actually turn that into a square and add the environment in? And I think that's maybe pertinent in this conversation in that.
Webinar vets obviously has taken millions of miles off the roads because vets haven't needed to travel to get their CPD in the same way that they did, you know, pre-online. There was, there was really no online 13 years ago when we set up webinar vets. But I suppose also here there are sometimes occasions, I, I'm thinking particularly with Liz, with large distances, if people can actually have a consult with their, specialist vet with their referral vet, which is done online.
With the sort of permission if you like of the referring that, that can also be massively helpful saving time, but also saving air miles or road miles as well. Have you got any thoughts on that, Wolfgang? Can we add an E in VCPER?
Could that be the, the landmark decision that was made on this podcast? It's very, very important that you mention that sort of the, the environmental sort of factor here changes . A lot and I mean that is what what both the veterinary to pet owner relationship, but also the peer to peer weCA relationship sort of is, is changing and I mean, that is if I look at that, what, what is, for example, done by companies like Pet Apps or or or First that or or a similar service providers is.
Basically a triage that you have a look. Is it really necessary to get on the road now? Do you have to rush down to the bed?
Can it wait until tomorrow? So there's a lot of filtering out done. And a lot of trivial cases are filtered out.
At the end of the day, sort of, we are not fixing a gastric torsion and sort of with the the service we are providing, we just say, well, You drive now. You're absolutely right that you phoned us. Don't waste any time.
This needs to be seen now, and I sent a report to your vet as well to to inform them already what is happening. The same thing service that that somebody like Liz does, I mean, I, I came across it wherever I was working. It's just absolutely amazing.
I mean. I was sitting somewhere up in the north of Norway or in Sweden sort of sometimes small, very dedicated vets, but good equipped, but obviously with a limited sort of skill level and then you suddenly have this big family of 200 specialists behind you. You, you send your, your CT images off to one of Li's specialists and and get a report.
Within a matter of hours. I mean that gives you just so much more capability and also reassurance. It's fantastic.
I was earlier this year was down in Patagonia and speaking to some vets in Chile, some very basic facilities, but because of the online connections they had with specialist centres, they had to back up not only of national. That, I mean they were going as far as Spain for their backup and why not sort of it's, it's the world is actually sort of in your pocket to give you a helping hand, and this is all to the benefit of our patients and it also obviously reduces dramatically the need to drive for hours to specialist centres. A lot of work can already be done just on site.
The world is getting smaller, Wolfgang, but I, I think you were placed dropping there and I did say you were the most widely travelled vet probably in the world, so I don't think I hope I hope that this continues, yes, yeah. I mean that is true, we, yeah, we, we have, yeah, we have, vets that, you know, specialists we employ across 30 different countries. We actually serve over 60 different countries, and I think with the The advent of some of the modern translation tools as well.
It's it's breaking down barriers in terms of provision of care to remote areas, to different languages, and, you know, and I think some, some of the really powerful stuff around, around telehealth is actually being able to reach animals and communities that haven't been able to access consistent veterinary care. And, you know, there there is huge potential. I think we have a tendency to focus quite a lot on the, you know, in practise to pet owner, you know, the impact of of telehealth there.
But actually, you know, if we take a bit of a broader look, you know, if you can send out a Wi Fi box and some refurbished iPhones to remote communities and provide education and support and and, you know, tele consultations and telemedicine. And, you know, to communities that haven't been able to access veterinary care, we can do a huge amount of good for for animal welfare and health and also supporting societies that depend on on working animals and livestock. Yes, Liz touched on that a little bit with the Galaxy veterinary group and the services she's providing in Ukraine.
I mean, I recently sort of, contacted my European colleagues to find out where we sit at the moment with provision of teleservices within Europe. One of the countries that replied immediately and has taken. Taking this on at high speed because of the, the, the current need is Ukraine and it is of so vital importance for pet owners in Ukraine that not only they can access .
Care for their virtual care for their pets on site under very difficult conditions, but also then getting the backup of a whole team in America with specialist support and then also VET CT if some, some further help is needed. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing what is possible.
Digitalising learning democratises it, so when, you know, we disrupted the online space with the old traditional CPD companies. Immediately we were able to offer a better quality and probably well definitely better value, cheaper service because to some degree it demonetizes it as well. It makes it possible for Galaxy vets to probably cost very little, but to do something really nice in that situation in in Ukraine where obviously a visit to the vets might be a life or death decision.
Whereas taking it, you know, away and and making it more remote, hopefully away from the front line is. You know, it is helping to save lives as well, I think one of the worries, you know, as a vet to how to practise is that, Obviously the, the tele providers, telemedicine providers come in and it help, it reduces the case load now. That possibly is less of a problem now because I know that many practises are struggling with reduced numbers of vets.
And, and also they're incredibly busy because of pandemic pets and so on. Do you think there's, there's something to be said for the using the virtual care is also helping in that it may allow us to use vets who would otherwise be leaving the professional, finding it very difficult to practise as a vet because of. Family commitments, perhaps even disability makes it physically difficult for them, but they could still very much offer consultation skills and so on.
One for you, Jessica. Thanks, Anthony. I think actually in all, if you look at it as a as a whole, it helps us to better manage our caseload.
So one great example, and you've given the example of how telemedicine can be used to keep valuable skills and people and colleagues inside the veterinary profession able to practise veterinary medicine without necessarily having to be present in a physical clinic all the time or even at all. But one thing that I can see from a physical clinic perspective is that we know around 70% of pet owners who are seen online for a consultation don't need to be seen in clinic afterwards. And of course that frees up the time and resources in the physical practise to be seeing emergencies, to be seeing patients that need workups and having surgeries, those higher value transactions that vets and nurses love getting stuck into.
So actually it frees up that patient workflow. It also enables a practise that may be limited by their location in terms of a floor plan or the number of people they have in the team on the ground to enable to expand their range of services and their reach to clients. So if you're a full vet practise, for example, you could add another 4 vets or veterinary nurses in a virtual setting or go way beyond that to be served better serving your your client and patient community.
So it's, it's really interesting to actually explore how digital health can be used to improve our efficiencies and to overcome some of the challenges that we're all facing at the moment, not just in the UK. Can I just add to that cause that's, that's a really sort of valid point about, you know, increasing the access to care. So if we think that, you know, I don't know what the percentage is, but, you know, it's not a massively high percentage of pet owners that actually visit the vets every year, .
And you know, a lot of that can be around cost issues. Now, if we can increase that percentage of pet owners that are able to access veterinary care, then even in the future, when hopefully we're retaining more people in the workforce, you know, we have additional veterinary schools kind of providing more, more graduates, you know, if the workforce. Does grow, hopefully we can actually grow it to to be reaching people who wouldn't have accessed veterinary care at all otherwise.
So I'd like to think the client base is also going to grow, as well as the the human resourcing in terms of keeping keeping people in the profession. I had a, had a lovely thing at VMX by, you know, one of our colleagues there who was saying she was delighted because she was retiring from clinical practise and so she could spend time with her grandchildren, and she's got lots of grandchildren now, but she said she would really miss veterinary care and what virtual care gives her is the opportunity to practise the medicine she loves, to talk to the clients she enjoys talking with, but to do it, you know, from you know, from seeing her grandchildren at home, so, yeah, there's lots, lots of people who are gonna benefit from being able to, to still be involved in veterinary practise. If we could move on to the RCBS review, if you don't mind, Jessica, just to, what, what were the standup bits for all of you, what, how has that changed our, our view and what we can actually do going forward, you know, as a sort of help to, Vets and nurses out there in practise or.
You know, thinking of working for Firstet or or Vetster or VET CT or, you know, many of the other companies that are out there, how do you, how do you see that developing, Jessica? Well, I think what it's, what the, the RCVS under the care review has done is formalise a previously informal way of working. And we've all been practising remote care for decades, whether it's on the phone or by letter or email, WhatsApp, we've all received and given information to clients and patients remotely.
So what this does is provide a formal framework and it also allows us to Charge professionally for our services, which historically as vets we're not good at doing. And it's important that practises leverage this opportunity in, you know, we've touched on some of the benefits already. We could, we could talk about a lot more, but there is a financial need to charge for our time and to make veterinary practise more sustainable, not only for treating animals but also for the teams and the businesses that need to be successful in order to continue to deliver that care.
So it's very, very interesting to see that we're, we're now really at a crossroads, and we've got a huge responsibility and there's big possibilities for how we pay forward particular more recent experience of remote care and the growing field of digital health. And all the ways in which we can use those tools to provide modern animal health, and the demand is out there from people who look after animals, pet owners, and it's a, it's an exciting opportunity for us as a profession to step forward and take responsibility and take part in the conversation, to collaborate, to use the wealth of data that's out there. In order to generate evidence and protocols around how we safely and effectively integrate, a revised way of working into our, into our daily work.
What? Yeah, just, just to sort of add to that, I think, you know, obviously there are a couple of provisions in there, there must be access to, a physical veterinary professional within 24 hours, which I think is, is sensible, you know, for those cases where they do actually need to see a vet. They don't get, get better, sort of rapidly.
I think as well, the fact that, . You know, antibiotic prescribing has been cautioned against remotely, unless it's sort of exceptional circumstances is it just a reminder to us all, again, to be very cautious about overprescribing of of antimicrobials. And I think interestingly, you know, if you look back at the, the review that was done in the lead up to the under care review in the survey that was done.
You know, they're over 5500 veterinary professionals who responded and over 70% of them thought that a physical examination was, you know, essential in order to kind of establish a vet client patient relationship. However, over 80% said they believe they should be allowed to use their professional judgement when prescribing online. And as Jess Jessica's just alluded to, we've been doing this sort of telehealth over the phone for quite some time and painful dogs, you know, recommending paracetamol or whatever, you know, if it's the middle of the night just to give them a bit of pain relief if the owners can't get them in overnight, etc.
So we have been doing this, . And and I think that using the professional judgement is, is key. You know, yes, it, it may leave things open to abuse, but, you know, all of veterinary practise is open to abuse if we're not, you know, professional in, in a way, the way we do an act, which is the oath that we've sworn.
And I think that the VCPI, you know, as we were saying earlier, some US states have no guidance at all, and they do just rely on vets to use their professional judgement as to what constitutes a VCPR. So it's almost like we're moving to more of that, that form of self regulation as individuals, not just as a, as a profession, which, you know, the, the majority of respondents to the, to the survey seemed in favour of. I think the antibiotic stewardship is.
Really important because this is a huge problem and. I think it is rising up people's lists of things that they need to be more educated on. I remember being at the Carver conference in Dublin 10 years ago and there was an antibiotic stewardship symposium and it was in the smallest room and it wasn't very full.
It was with David Lloyd. So it is an area that I think people are beginning to understand and actually just as a, a small plug, we will try and get this out before the virtual congress. Mars are actually sponsoring and partnering with us for one of the days they will be talking about antibiotic stewardship and how they approach that in the many practises that they now own as well, so that's well worth listening to.
It is free to listen to live if you want to listen to recordings, you would have to pay for the recordings, so that I think is, Wednesday 2 till 4, which I think is the 8th of February. So if people do want to, watch that then we will put that link at the bottom of this, podcast as well. Wolfgang, any thoughts on the CVS review, anything that you want to add that, Luz and Jessica haven't added?
The rest of Europe is watching closely how this is working. So this is, as Jessica already pointed out, the UK is pretty much now leading the way. It was until now, I would say mainly the Scandinavian countries that were embracing telemedicine.
other countries are providing it, but, prescribing online was still a red line pretty much everywhere, and now, seeing that this is now, that a different take, that the UK is having a different take on this. The rest of Europe will follow very, very closely and it will be interesting maybe to, to revisit it in a year or or in a couple of years to see how well this has worked out. I mean, this was making a very good point.
I think it's not so much, I think the antibiotics, which will be prescribed online, it's mainly pain medication. Pain medication is probably one of the, the, the most important thing, and then possibly some sort of chronic medication a patient is already very, very stable on. I'm thinking, for example, about thyroid hormone medication or anti-thyroid hormone medication, for example, in cats, something like that, possibly having said that, well, we will see how that works out.
One point that is very important is . How often was it that veterinary advice, online veterinary advice led later to litigation? It's virtually unheard of.
And if you have a look at how the approval rating of veterinary services is, if you have a look at Google reviews of companies like First Vet, for example, It's 4.95 or something like that out of 5. Show me a veterinary clinic that has that sort of physical veterinary clinic, that sort of approval rating.
So, . The the reason for that is there's a definite time that spends with a client. Clients get the impression or gets the necessary attention, and you will find that the majority of telemedicine providers will rather send somebody then to a physical clinic than taking the risk and saying, Ah, I think your dog will make it through the night or so.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not, it's, it's more so that people might say, Oh yeah, I have a little lumps there. Do you think it's anything to worry about? And we would say yes, most likely don't worry about it, but it should be investigated.
Make an appointment at normal opening hours. I think it's nothing to lose your sleep over tonight, but go to the vet's tomorrow or the following day. No need to rush, but let it let them check it out.
Have a needle biopsy taken that gives you the necessary reassurance, and you have somebody who can go to bed and can get a good night's sleep, doesn't worry too much about it. So there's a lot of benefit coming out. In all directions to the pet owner, to the clinical practises, but also to the internet service providers.
I, I think it's . You know, it's, it's really interesting that we, we talk about triage cos we've, we've talked about it, but this is where it really does come in. Is it urgent, is it not?
If it is urgent, you need to go to a vets if it isn't urgent, you may not need to go to a vets or you may need to go to a vets within the next day, week, etc. I think as well, you know, Wolfgang mentioned lumps, wouldn't it be great if we could see lumps sooner, you know. Oh, it's been there for months and months.
I wasn't sure whether to bring the dog or not, but you know, it costs a lot and I have to travel, etc. Well, if we can be checking lumps earlier because they've spoken to somebody remotely, you know, great. And I presume also.
Just general advice, I'm thinking of having my dog spayed. I remember I had a very good client who went off for a referral somewhere and then eventually for a leg, I think for an orthopaedic problem, and then that was sorted out and a few months later it came back and it had been spayed at the clinic and they not. Necessarily, you know, there'd been a complication, and I sort of said, why did you not come to me to get the dogs paid, oh we didn't realise you did that, so actually just being given a general advice on things which sometimes in a busy practise, We're too busy to spend time on behaviour or on.
Whether the dog or the cat should be spayed or what sort of ectoparasites and endoparasite control is needed, these things can be done. People can have a bit more time to to spend and they can spend the time that they think is appropriate to get that information, which sometimes, A busy general practise is unable to do. Yeah, nutrition is a big one that I always wish I had more time to discuss, you know, that's a great example of something that was, is a fantastic online conversation.
Any final thoughts, Wolfgang, Jessica? I was going to add, Anthony, that we've got to recognise that we're dealing with a new type of pet parent, and I'm not excluding obviously the larger herd species as well, but we're dealing with people who want to be more informed, want to feel empowered to take decisions and to be more able to look after their pets. The pet is now one of the family and that's why we call them pet parents, and so.
This is a great way of providing education outside of the consulting room in person and ensuring that as we just touched on, we're able to help owners pick things up sooner, treat sooner, prevent even. And we're we're increasingly moving and we as vets, we always talk about preventative health, but we're moving increasingly towards a preventative care landscape and hopefully we want to drive that with pet owners and improve the bond between clinics and their clients because there are so many third party resources out there, Dr. Google being one of them that we're competing with, we want to bond clients with their vets, and this is a great way of doing that.
And they want the information immediately, as you've said, and if they don't get it from a professional person, they may get it from Doctor Google and. That's, as we know, is not always good good information and good advice. And I think the thoughts Wolfgangle is, yes, absolutely.
I think we are living in such an interesting time. I mean these are amazing developments, especially over the last 10 years, and I mean I'm I'm dealing also a bit with IBSA, the International Veterinary Student Associations. The, the forthcoming, veterinary professionals, sort of the next generation, I mean, for them it will be normal to have also an online engagement, be it to specialists or be it to their clients, and there is no.
Point in trying to to to try to ignore it or or or or to be completely negative about it as Jessica said, I mean if we don't want to leave the field to Dr. Google and to unpeer reviewed sort of advice, then . We have to be proactive.
It's just so that we have to make sure that we use the virtual veterinary care facilities and possibilities we have in a sensible way in connection with clinical practise. There will never be an excuse or a redundancy for clinical practise, but we have to work together and have to understand that this is a new tool that we have in our hands. I mean, your services, for example, with webinarvet typical example, sort of where you definitely didn't set out to to have webinar vet and then to say, so all veterinary conferences now are obsolete, you're just meeting online.
And have a look what's happening. So of VMX was the most attended conference ever, so there is still the demand to meet also physically, but maybe then to say, well, Is it always necessary to get all my CPD only at these conferences? Probably not.
So we can get it online, but we can also get it physical. So physical conferences will not be a thing of the past just because they are also virtual conferences. It's just.
An add on, and that's the same thing with virtual veterinary care. It is part of the mix and it's a tool that is given to us and we would be stupid to ignore it. Thank you so much.
I'm conscious of the time we've had some, I think, really good conversation there. Hopefully this has been helpful for people who are still finding their way around the virtual veterinary care arena. I really appreciate your time today and I hope that we will catch up very soon.
Who knows, maybe even at SI's tomorrow. If you want to find out more information or get more involved in the VVCA I suggest that you go to the website which is the which is VVCA.org, or if you want to email, then it is VVCA.EA at.
Gmail.com and these addresses will be in the content underneath the podcast. Thanks everyone for listening and this is Anthony Chadwick from the Webinar vet and this was another episode of Vet Chat.
Take care, bye bye. Thank you.
