Hi everybody and welcome to another special edition episode of Vet Chat brought to you in association with the World Congress of Veterinary Dermatology 9. And in today's episode, I am delighted to be joined by not only my boss, but the more important feature of this is that he's the founder of the webinar vet, Anthony Chadwick. Anthony, now obviously we're gonna try and keep this as as focused as we can, but as two scousers chatting about things, we can often get carried away on a tangent.

This year's been a fairly big year for the webinar vets, and, and of course a lot of the people listening will be people that have maybe never heard of the organisation until 2020. But of course with, with COVID-19, digital education has very much come to the fore for our profession, and, and those who are maybe coming across you for the first time might might not realise that the webinar vet is actually 10 years old. In 2020, so I just wonder, for anyone who's coming across us for the first time this year, give them a little insight into, you know, why you founded the webinar that, what your aspirations were for it, and, you know, sort of how you've got to this point now.

Yeah, hi Ben, really interesting question. You're right, we, we started a webinar vet in, in 2010. I actually went, being a bit contrarian.

I, I'd been instead of at a veterinary conference, I was at an internet conference, and there was me as a sort of small animal practitioner. I had my own practise, but also with a special interest in dermatology, I would do some peripatetic travelling around seeing difficult cases for other vets. And I was at the conference and somebody was speaking about webinars and I thought, oh my goodness, why are we not doing this in the veterinary profession?

To train as a vet, obviously 5 years, but then once you have qualified, you've got to continue to, to take training as well, and it was very, very expensive in terms of time and money. There was really no online presence. I think it was because the traditional companies liked it the way it was, they were making a really, handsome packet out of doing CPD.

And I, I think feeling the pain of just the difficulty of doing CPD, that kind of 6 o'clock at night, jumping in the car after a busy evening surgery to travel up the motorway to Manchester or wherever to do an hour of CPD was, Well, it wasn't what you really wanted to do, but you realised you, you know, you wanted to keep up to date, but it could wear you down. So I think people were a bit stressed by it, and there needed to be a better alternative, and so it, it really hit me, you know, like a bit of a light bulb moment that if we could do more online training, it would make it easier for vets. It would democratise it, it would make it cheaper to do the training as well.

So. I did the first webinar after hearing about webinars in the end of January. I did my first webinar in early March 2010.

And very much it was me talking about pruritus. It was a dermatology topic. I had obviously vets who referred cases, so I had 55 people in.

And at the end of that, I said, look, I'll come into your practises if you want, and teach you a bit of dermatology, and off the back of that, a couple of people signed up, and I used . The webinars partly just helped me to promote my dermatology service, but then I began to realise that obviously other Branches of the profession would enjoy it too, so very early on I set up a series that had Mike Hertage, Dean of Cambridge Vet School, Pip Boydell, sadly passed away far too soon doing ophthalmology, and then Alan Robinson doing a management webinar, and I actually took a leaflet to BSABA, went outside to people sitting eating their lunches and just passed those vouchers around, giving half price webinar, . You know, experience, and of course nobody really knew what a webinar was when I went round the stands telling people, People like Royal Canon, you know, Hills, MSD, etc.

Intervet as it probably was then, you need to be doing webinars, people said, well, What's a webinar. So it really wasn't a, a name or a word known in the veterinary dictionary at that time. And 10 years later, as you've said, it's probably, it's always been the saviour certainly of being able to do your CPD this year because of course physical meetings have cancelled.

In 2020 we, we did another webinar on the 5th of March on pruritis and, and dermatology in general, got some great people like David Lloyd, David Grant, to speak with me on a round table. And of course it was just the start of the grumblings and, and the worries about coronavirus, but then since that time, we've obviously had many conferences go online. We, we've been doing virtual conferences ourselves since 2013, as well as individual webinars, and you know, things have really taken off this year and what was a big thrill for me was obviously then, you know.

Making that relationship with WCVD 9 and and helping them take the conference, which I would have been attending in Sydney, but instead I, I ended up staying in my own bedroom or or study watching webinars, so it was, it was, disappointing from that side, but I think it's been great that that conference, you know, sadly hasn't had to stop just because of coronavirus and . The committee has been amazing, really, so supportive, very innovative in wanting it to go ahead. But you know, as a conference that I've been going to since 1996, every four years, it's been a big thrill for me to be able to help in, in, you know, in a small way, making sure that we, we still have it this year and, and looking forward then to Boston in 4 years and wondering, you know, what the shape of the world will be and quite how education will be in 4 years as well, so exciting.

Times, albeit with that tinge of sadness with, you know, what's going on in, in, in the bigger world, but, maybe in 4 or 5 years' time when we're in Boston, we'll be able to sit down and say, Coronavirus wasn't great. There was sacrifice, but sometimes. You know, good things come out of sacrifice as well, and, and, you know, better care of the environment, making it easier for vets to get this training, vets who perhaps couldn't have made it to Sydney, you know, are sitting down and we're getting fantastic, comments from people who are saying, you know, I wouldn't have been at Sydney, but this has been a fantastic conference, so when you digitalize something, .

Ben, you, you really democratise it and to some degree you demonetize it by making it affordable for people to attend. And I think that's something that is obviously . Very, very clear, you know, I mean, I, I, I'm going to brush over the fact that, you know, you started going to WCBD in 1996 when I'd just started senior school.

But, but yeah, just, just to rub that one in. The, the great thing I suppose for you, you know, and, and in some respects, you know, that there's no arrogance in these things sometimes is looking at personal achievement in life, but of course dermatology has formed such a big part of your professional life that. It's quite nice to see how it intertwines with the life cycle of the webinar vet, and very much sort of, you know, it is the, you know, the flagship if you like, of, of the success from 2020.

And I think you really, really do hit the nail on the head in that by digitalizing so much of the content that has been available to the world in 2020. It is available to a vast amount more veterinary professionals than it would have been previously, which can surely only be a good thing for the delivery of veterinary services across the world. Yes, I absolutely agree, Ben.

I, you know, I think the committee. I would have expected 1500 people and at at the Sydney conference, which obviously would have been a great number, but actually we've doubled that by taking it digitally. People have got 6 months to watch the content.

When I was in Bordeaux in 2016, at the last conference. That kind of really neatly bookmarked my clinical career because I, my first ever dermatology conference with the SVD was in Bordeaux in 1994 when you weren't even in senior school, Ben. You were, you were still in your short trousers in in junior school.

So, 1994, 1st ever conference in Bordeaux. And I always say those early conferences, certainly in Bordeaux, I got there thinking I was going to a dermatology conference, and there may be a little bit of wine drunk, and I actually went to a wine conference and there was a little bit of dermatology taught. It was a, it was a fabulous conference as, as those who were at it may remember.

2016 we went back again, but this time for the World Conference. And it was a fabulous conference, but all the time I had this challenge of do I go and see David Lloyd, or do I go and see Danny Scott, because they're both on at the same time, and I can't see both of them, so I have to make a choice. And that can be really difficult cos they're both brilliant speakers.

Now with the conference digitalized, I can see both of them because it, I don't need to choose which stream to go into. I would hope at some stage I could learn to bilocate. But it hasn't happened so far, so unfortunately, you know, you miss things at these physical conferences, whereas now everything has been recorded and digitalized, so you can go away at the end of the conference and say, I didn't miss any of those sessions, I really wanted to.

Also because, you know, oh, I got stuck with somebody chatting over a coffee, which was a really interesting chat, but it meant I missed the start of Danny's lecture, and I didn't feel I could just walk in, you know, 10 minutes late. So it's been . A big joy for me, as I said before, to be able to help.

It is my discipline that I, you know, I, I spent most of my professional life trying to, to get better at and trying to teach others with. So the fact in an educational sense, obviously not giving any of the lectures but can be, you know, a part of that, helping it to be delivered has been, you know, a big thrill for me. And I think something that, you know, I, I think is really cool about it, others may disagree, but I think this is really cool.

The thing that makes WCVD stand out to me as a, as a digital conference is very much the exhibition at the show. Because this is something that is groundbreaking in terms of digital exhibitions, because you look at, you know, I dare say anyone who's ever been to a veterinary conference before, one of the great things, let's face it, the vast majority of us go for a little bit of a, a shindig and a social rendezvous with, you know, past colleagues, university friends and so on and so forth. And that exhibition hall gives us that.

Ability to do that and certainly I've come across a few things over the years where you're like, oh, I've got to have a look at that. I've never seen that before, it looks quite cool. But of course, transferring that 3D physical exhibition hall to something that is easily navigated, easily engaged with and visually appealing in a digital 2D world is something of a challenge, .

And yet it seems to be that that this exhibition hall is different to others. You know, what, what is it that's sort of special about this exhibition? I think again it's just been really interesting to see that whole development.

We, we actually, as I've said, have done a virtual conference ourselves every year since 2013. Obviously serendipitously became world experts by 2020 when coronavirus hit. And actually in in 2014 and 2015, we, we ran a digital exhibition at the conference, and it was too early for people, you know, the, the, the, the sponsors didn't really get it.

We got some traffic and there were some people who really kind of embraced it and understood it, and they, you know, they got some value from it. But the general kind of corporate . Population didn't really get it.

Go forward to 2020 and people are, are desperate to still, you know, chat to, to vets. And it's been really difficult. You can't go into practise, vets are very busy, so they're probably not going to be, you know, most pleased to get telephone calls and things.

And I think this has been a real opportunity, one for vets to kind of see what is going on, you know, some of the really cool stuff on . Prurituss control, and the diet that I'm getting extremely excited about is the Purina cat diet that allows cats eating the food to become hypoallergenic to humans. And my wife is allergic to cats, so I am hoping this might allow me to get a cat back into the house again.

So some fantastic information there which, you know, is difficult for us to get at the moment because, you know, we clearly haven't been able to go to a physical conference. And I think what's been really interesting, 5 years after our, our last attempt at doing a a virtual conference and virtual exhibition, is how much more people now want to embrace it, and it's been really exciting being involved with the principal and main sponsors who are really excited, how do we push the, the boat out here, how do we, you know, try and do something really special, and I think the stands have been amazing, . A lot of hard work has been put in by the various companies.

The symposia that they've created, the ones I've seen so far have been excellent, so, you know, I would encourage those who haven't got around the exhibition as much to go and look at it. I, I think it navigates well. And then there's some really outstanding content on the stands, including those, those symposiums.

So we want to try and bring something that is similar to that experience that you would have at a physical conference, but actually, By making it easy for people to leave details, I know, I don't know what you're like, but we had several 100 people in on the first couple of days in the exhibition. Now, if that was happening at a physical exhibition, you often walk around and you see your favourite stand and you go to walk on it and actually see everybody's busy. There's not a lot that you can do, so you walk away and you maybe don't come back to it with a digital situation, the stand is never that busy, so you can get on, you can.

You know, ask questions, leave, leave notes for people so that they can get back to you. So I, I've been very excited about it, you know, I'm sure there's a lot more for us to learn to get better at it, but one of our value words in the company is Kais and, and I think it is all about just that continual improvement. And, and we take that into all the work we do and, and certainly even, you know, with the virtual conference we've been speaking to companies as it started and to delegates, and we want to continue to improve the experience for, for delegates and, and companies as well.

So very exciting and if you haven't been on it yet, I really would recommend it. And of course, you know, for many people, 2020 has been the first exposure to the webinar vet, as an organisation, and, and the webinar vet as, as, you know, as a facilitator of, of virtual events, more latterly, so. What would you say to anybody who's who's, you know, come across the organisation this year, you know.

What what's What is the webinar vet about to you? Well, our mission very much from starting it very early days was to make veterinary education accessible and affordable to vets around the globe, and, and then kind of coincidentally, because we were doing that, when we were going around conferences, we were finding people saying, do you know what, you've really helped to reduce my stress levels, it's so much easier to do the CE CPD and. That's been a really big thrill, because we all know that the profession struggles with stress and anxiety and so on.

And it's a great, great job, and, and so it's sad when, when that is happening. So it's been very much a part of the webinar vet's remit to try and help in that situation. We partnered with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to offer mindfulness training as part of their Mind Matters initiative.

And it's really important to me as a slightly more senior member of the profession now, to, to, you know, be there to support younger members who are coming through in, in difficult times, you know, those who qualified this year. I don't envy them trying to find jobs and, you know, a really difficult market, so. I would just like us to be there to, you know, to help and to support and care for, for, for, you know, my community, which is made up of my colleagues and my friends.

I think those who've come on, you know, and bought a ticket for WCBD 9, of course, unless you've actually specifically asked to receive mailings from the webinar that we won't do that, that you'll obviously get mailings about WCBD 9. But for example, this week we just did a great webinar with, with Mars Pet Care about periodontal disease, which is obviously a huge problem. So, For dermatologists, the, the, there may not be more information on the site that would be interesting because obviously the webinar vet has really been set up to help the GP.

But for those vets who are coming on, you know, like myself, who also had a first opinion practise, I think it's a really great opportunity to go around, have a look at the site. Enjoy some of the free content and if that is a good fit for you, you know, consider membership and we're always happy to, to chat about the various ways that people can get involved either with a membership or a ticket for our own virtual conference that we run every year. We know from our surveys that our quality and our customer service is really high, so.

We're there to serve and to, to help, and if we can, you know, we're more than happy to help, so. Would love to, to speak and learn more about where people are coming from as well, because We are an international organisation, we have vets all over the world, but clearly we, we're, you know, quite UK centric. It's been great this time to, to see how many nations are on the WCBD 9 conference.

Last time I looked it was well over 70. And I, I think it's a, we, we have a really lovely community which is the veterinary community and I've been all over the world and made friends with vets all over the world, and we are just that really nice close knit community, and of course, I, I'm please don't repeat this to non dermatologists, but vets are lovely people but dermatologists are the most special, so we, we've, we've really hit a. Stream of good fortune helping to run the WCVD 9 cause dermatologists are ace.

And there's absolutely no bias in that one. Not at all, not at all. Anthony, it's great to chat, it's great to get a bit of an insight into the webinar there and also, you know, the great work that's going on, not just in supporting dermatology, but, but across the profession, but, you know, hopefully in 4 years' time we do make it across to Boston.

But that there's not just the physical, but maybe some digital element there as well, where, you know, we can, we can really look at spreading the message of whatever content we've got, not just to the attendance, but to the rest of the veterinary community all over the world. Well, in the end education is about. Making the vets better, making them more confident is part of our vision to have the world's most confident vets, because we know if we've got the world's most confident vets, they will walk into consulting rooms onto farms, and they'll be able to solve a lot more problems than if they're not.

And in the end, if they're doing that, then animal welfare improves, so. We have an obligation, I believe, to spread education, veterinary education from, you know, the more developed countries to the ones that are still in that process, because in the end, the reason that we did the job was to improve animal welfare, and I think this is . A great leveraged way of getting that information out in a way that, you know, physical conferences just can't as easily.

Antony, it's great to chat. Thank you so much for your time. Congratulations on a fantastic conference, and I'm looking forward to seeing more coming from the organisation in the years ahead.

Thanks, Ben, take care, bye bye.