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Hillside Veterinary Centre
116 Wareham Road
Corfe Mullen
Wimborne, Dorset, BH21 3LH
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CPD and BSAVA - what's that all about?

13th April 2016
CPD and BSAVA - what's that all about?

The British Small Animal Veterinary Association annual congress in Birmingham

Nurses Gemma and Holly and I were excited to attend the annual British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) congress in Birmingham last week. Hopefully, you might have seen some social media posts, on Facebook and Twitter, and wondered what this was all about?

The official term for on-going learning is ‘Continuing Professional Development’ or CPD. Rather like doctors, it is a requirement for all vets and veterinary nurses to keep up-to-date on recent developments, new drugs and modern thinking. We have always supported and encouraged this (official requirement or not) and the annual conference provides a perfect opportunity catch up on new developments.

A rather wet and dull morning in central Birmingham last week saw the three of us bright and early ready for lectures. The conference takes place over four days and is internationally recognized as one of the largest and most prestigious Veterinary gatherings in the world with over 6,500 delegates attending last year.

It takes the forms of many lecture streams in Birmingham’s ICC conference centre on subjects as diverse as anaesthesia, cardiology, ophthalmology, ethics and dilemmas, specialist feline nursing and staff support and development to name but a few – with over 350 different lectures in total.

Running concurrently is a huge commercial exhibition in the (Barclaycard) National Indoor Arena where all the pharmaceutical companies and equipment suppliers display their latest advances.

I was really pleased that Gemma and Holly were buzzing with enthusiasm after their lectures with a host of new ideas and improvements to bring back to the practice.

Personally, I particularly enjoyed learning about recent advances in anaesthesia and pain control as well as a very useful few sessions on respiratory disease from some inspiring speakers from the USA.

Of course a four-day congress is not just all about learning and there is some time for play too. The nurses seemed to manage a tour of the city’s best burger restaurants in the evenings (I understand ‘Five Guys’ rated highest) whilst I was lucky enough to be invited to MSD Animal Health’s evening at the Jam House on Thursday night. These kind of evenings also provide an ideal environment to catch up with old friends and colleagues and share news and ideas over a drink or two.

All in all, we all pronounced BSAVA 2016 a huge success and look forward to sharing our new ideas and discoveries with the rest of the Hillside team and thereby improve further our care for the animals – which is what it’s all about.

 

Chris Devlin BVSc MRCVS

Vet & Partner

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