Veterinary Woman has published Champions for Change, a free downloadable ebook which profiles sixteen inspirational people, nominated by their peers, who are making a difference and creating positive change for women in the veterinary sector.

The book highlights some of the ways that action is being taken in the profession to retain and develop female talent, build women’s economic empowerment, support women into leadership, decision-making and business, and create infrastructure that meets the needs of women. 

Profiles include Dr Katrin Jahn, who is paving the way for female veterinary professionals in the Middle East and Dr Jyotika Sangle, who works in regulatory affairs in India, where the veterinary profession is not considered to be a career choice for women, and its importance is not well understood.

Also profiled is Perdi Welsh, who is working to enhance career progression options for veterinary nurses, and Samantha Lympany-Tier, who is advocating for the role of veterinary care assistants and patient emotional welfare in clinical practice.

Veterinary Woman editor, Jenny Langridge, said: “When we’re feeling worn down by work pressures it can be difficult to envisage change for the better, but the veterinary professions are bursting with people driving innovation and development in many different ways.

"I hope that our ‘Champions for Change’ eBook will help vet professionals of all types to find inspiration from the stories of the amazing efforts taking place within the sector to drive new thinking and improvements to wellbeing, career prospects, equality and inclusivity.”

https://www.veterinarywoman.co.uk/2024/03/champions-for-change-e-book 

Bicester Vets in North Oxfordshire has become the first to install Improvet, a touch-screen unit through which the practice can gather client feedback.

Improvet is one of a range of services offered by Pfizer as part of Vet Support+. It's designed to help small animal practices gather information, interpret client feedback and ultimately provide targets to drive business improvements. Located in the practice's reception area, the pre-programmed survey takes a few minutes of a pet owner's time to complete and is apparently proving a hit with clients.

The survey covers all aspects of the service the client has received, from booking through to the consultation, payment and administration of their appointment. Client comments are collected into a report assessing the standards of customer service delivered across the practice team.

Jason Williams, veterinary surgeon at Bicester Vets, said: "We have felt for a long time that we needed to make some changes at the practice in order to move forward and be well placed for future challenges and opportunities. With this in mind we undertook a review of our practice with the help of a Pfizer Business Consultant and during this process our staff identified that client communication and gauging client experience was something we were struggling with.

"When our Pfizer Business Consultant explained Improvet it seemed a logical next step. The completely paperless, anonymous nature and automatic report generation means it's taken the hassle out of surveying our pet-owning clients so that now instead of simply talking about the need for a client survey, we actually have one underway.  We will use this information to get a clear picture of how we are performing and communicating as a practice before and after improvements are made."

Improvet gives practices a way of surveying clients completely independently of staff. Armed with this data about what clients truly think, a practice can: 

• Improve their knowledge of client perceptions of service
• Identify potential areas for improvement such as; practice accessibility, capacity problems and rotas, client communications, perceived value for money, opportunities for new services
• Enhance the word-of-mouth marketing of the surgery

Practices that think they would benefit from having an Improvet unit in their reception area should contact their Pfizer Account Manager or call 0845 519 4977.

MSD Animal Health has relaunched its Research Bursary Initiative to include awards for both vet students and practitioners. 

The existing MSD Animal Health Connect Bursary and Ruminant Research Bursary have been combined into the new MSD Animal Health Research Bursary which is designed to support the future of the veterinary profession through research.

The student arm of the new Research Bursary will award £1,000 to the five best research project applications received from veterinary students across all UK veterinary schools, with an opportunity for an additional £1,000 top prize and £500 runner-up prize.

The veterinary surgeon arm of the Research Bursary will offer three awards, consisting of two ruminant awards and one companion animal award, of up to £4,000 each. The veterinary practitioner proposals will be judged by University academics to ensure independent assessment.  

Michelle Townley, Veterinary Advisor at MSD Animal Health said: "Our existing Research Bursaries are well known amongst students and practitioners, having run for over 25 years for the student bursary and 6 years for the ruminant bursary. To increase our support for the veterinary profession through research we have decided to combine our Research Bursaries and add some new categories to help appeal to as wide an audience as possible. This way we can offer a broader level of support for both existing companion animal and ruminant practitioners and our veterinary surgeons of the future. We aim to engage as many people as possible so the MSD Animal Health Research Bursary will be supported by a new website page and social media package to encourage as much interest from students and practitioners as possible."

Student bursary applications are now invited, with a deadline for entries of Friday 26^th May 2017.  Veterinary practitioners will be invited to apply in September 2017.

For further details go to the MSD Animal Health Research Bursary website at www.msd-animal-health.co.uk/researchbursary.aspx.   

BEVA has launched Back in the Saddle, a six-month coaching programme to support vets who are either returning to work or who want to change tack in some way.

The programme is for vets who are more than five years qualified, and thus not eligible for BEVA’s Leg Up coaching. 

It has been developed in response to numerous BEVA members reporting periods of feeling lost or adrift in their career as life progresses after graduation, particularly following a career break. 

The programme is led by a team of individuals who have experienced the challenges of working in equine practice and have all undergone extensive coaching training.

It takes the form of group sessions where participants can discuss, learn and share knowledge in a workshop style environment.

Lucy Grieve, Veterinary Projects Officer at BEVA said: “Back in the Saddle provides a safe, supportive and encouraging environment to help individuals understand what it is they want from their career, following a break, for example for parental leave or injury.

"By reflecting on their career achievements, learnt skills and professional needs, in the context of their life as it is now, it enables them to prioritise appropriately, create achievable goals, and find their place in the profession again.

“Our coaches are professionally trained, friendly and empathetic, and the nature of group coaching means peer support opens up to all involved.

"This helps counter feelings of isolation and self-doubt and enables a sense of purpose and confidence to return and develop further.” 

The first Back in the Saddle programme starts on 11 June 2024 – applications are now open and will close on 17 May 2024.

https://form.asana.com/?k=5BoRR89NDXQ_CAsWZ-g-HQ&d=11947487954206 

Vets Now has opened bookings for its emergency and critical care Congress, taking place on Thursday 7th and Friday 8th November 2023 at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds.

Open to all veterinary professionals looking to enhance their knowledge and skills in emergency and critical care, this year's Congress has a lineup of over 30 internationally-renowned speakers and leading clinicians and offers up to 70 hours of CPD. 

This year’s keynote speaker is specialist transplant nurse and chair of the UK One Health Coordination Group, Helen Ballantyne, and organisers will also be welcoming veterinary nurse Ken Yagi, formerly program director of the CPR simulation lab at Cornell University, who’ll deliver an update on the new RECOVER (CPR) guidelines being released this year.    

Simon Hagley, ECC Specialist and Clinical Director at Vets Now hospital in Manchester said: “We are confident our 2024 programme offers something for everyone, no matter what stage of your ECC career you are at, from students through to specialists and everything in between. 

"We listened to delegate feedback from last year’s event, and we have brought back some firm favourites including our ’Controversies’ and ‘Joined Up Thinking sessions’, but we have introduced exciting new streams including 'Catastrophic case conversations'. 

“We’ve also we’ve extended the popular nursing streams from last year to span two entire days and lunchtime case presentations from interns across the country are also on the programme.” 

https://www.vets-now.com/congress 

Following last week's news from Defra that sales of antibiotics for food-producing animals in the UK have dropped by 27%, comfortably beating the government target of 50mg/kg which was set following the 2016 O’Neill Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, targets for further reducing antibiotic use across the key livestock sectors have been announced by Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (RUMA) Alliance 'Targets Task Force'.

The Targets Task Force comprises a leading veterinary surgeon and farmer from each of the beef, dairy, egg, fish, gamebird, pig, poultry meat and sheep sectors, who have been consulting with key organisations in their respective industries. The group also includes observers from regulators Food Standards Agency and Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD).

While the targets each sector has set vary according to the availability of data and scope in their sector, the targets as a whole have been described as 'positive and proactive' by the VMD. 

The headline targets for the eight sectors include a reduction in use of antibiotics in pigs by over 60% between 2015 and 2020, with minimal use of highest priority Critically Important Antibiotics (CIAs). RUMA reports that good progress has already been made in this sector, with usage falling by around 35% between 2015 and 2016.

Targets Task Force member and president of the Pig Veterinary Society Mark White said: "It's encouraging to see the response in the sector to the challenge laid down, which bodes well for achieving our ambitious 2020 goal. It is evident that the sector – steered mainly by the members of the Pig Veterinary Society, AHDB Pork and the National Pig Association – has the will and the capability to fully engage with the issue."

Next steps, he said, were to focus on eliminating routine preventative treatment where it is still happening, mainly due to lack of resource or expertise. "We can also work to improve water delivery systems so that more targeted treatment in the water can be used instead of in-feed medication."

The dairy cattle sector has committed to a 20% reduction by 2020, with a particular focus on halving use of the highest priority CIAs. The work to achieve this will be led by a newly-created Dairy Antimicrobial Stewardship Group (DASG) which includes all key organisations in the sector.

Some of the strategies to achieve these goals in dairy farming include reducing the use of antibiotic dry cow therapy and injectable products, and cutting back on group treatments such as antibiotic footbaths for lameness which remain largely unproven, instead using topical and targeted treatments.

Di Wastenage, dairy farmer from Devon, Task Force member and chair of the DASG, said the sector needed to be ambitious about what it could achieve. “While use is lower than in some sectors, there are clear areas to tackle where use can be habitual, or common disease problems go unchallenged.

"For example, eliminating BVD and Persistently Infected animals from the herd is one of the obvious places to start, as well as talking to your vet to calculate the usage levels you have at the moment. Calf rearing can produce a 'hot spot' of treatment, as can digital dermatitis. Everyone has the potential to use antibiotics more responsibly somewhere."

The gamebird sector, having undergone a comprehensive awareness-raising initiative among game rearers in 2017 to cut back on reducing the need for medicines, aims to reduce use by a quarter this year, with a further 25% reduction between 2018 and 2020. 

Three sectors – poultry meat, laying hen and fish – are either already low users of medicines or have made significant reductions over the past five years. These sectors will be focusing on maintaining use at the minimal level needed to ensure good health and welfare among their livestock, while tackling emerging challenges should they arise.

The poultry meat sector, previously described as a 'pathfinder' for the rest of the farming industry, has already reduced use by 71% between 2012, when its stewardship scheme was introduced, and 2016. 

In doing this, the poultry meat sector has also ceased all preventative treatment and use of the highest priority CIAs. It will now maintain current levels in chickens and look for further reductions in turkeys. This sector will use clinical governance to ensure CIA antibiotics are only prescribed when absolutely needed and with sign off from veterinary specialists and management.

The laying hen and fish sectors have similarly committed to continuing low use, with the laying hen sector eliminating all use of highest priority CIAs in the past two years. The development of a vaccine in the salmon sector several years ago successfully controlled one of its most challenging bacterial diseases, so the focus has turned to the health of the ‘cleaner fish’ used to provide natural control of sea lice.

The trout farming sector, with its greater number of small producers, is concentrating on reducing the need for antibiotics and improving data capture.

The beef and sheep sectors are already low users of antibiotics, but have acknowledged they each need better data, and will also commit to addressing 'hotspots' of use. Both have committed to a 10% reduction in antibiotic use by 2020, subject to securing better data.

For the beef sector, reduction in use centres around calves and youngstock, particularly in the areas of respiratory disease. There is also an emphasis on calves from dairy herds, where mixing animals from different sources can create a peak in disease pressure similar to children going to school for the first time.

In sheep, the focus areas are to reduce routine preventative antibiotic usage against abortion (miscarriage), lameness and neonatal lamb diseases such as watery mouth and joint ill. 

With initiatives proving that routine preventative use is largely avoidable through a combination of vaccination, good hygiene, quality nutrition and careful shepherding, Dr Fiona Lovatt of the Targets Task Force is optimistic about the opportunities to reduce overall use.

"In the sheep sector, we’re not high users of antibiotics. But we want to ensure that any use is totally targeted so we are challenging all inappropriate or routine preventative use.  

"Convincing farmers to change practices is tricky, and none of us want to see an increase in levels of disease, but those who have had the courage to work with their vets to change what they do are now seeing what is possible. The answer is to take a holistic approach and work closely with a keen sheep vet."

Gwyn Jones, chair of both RUMA and the Targets Task Force, said he has been overwhelmed by the positivity of the group and its willingness to be ambitious. "The members have worked very hard and have shown incredible leadership and persistence. They have also provided unprecedented support and inspiration to each other.

"I am delighted they have agreed that the group should continue to meet twice-yearly to review progress and discuss issues."

The full report with all targets for each sector can be downloaded from the RUMA website www.ruma.org.uk.

Boehringer Ingelheim, manufacturer of Bovikalc and Bovikalc Dry, has launched its National Milk Fever (hypocalcaemia) Survey and is asking vets to encourage their farm clients to take part and improve the quality of data available on clinical and subclinical milk fever.

Survey forms are available from Boehringer Ingelheim Territory Managers or the survey can be completed online at https://bovikalc.typeform.com/to/jVGllV.

There will be a prize draw amongst the completed entries for 20 Bovikalc metal applicators, outers or gilets.

The survey will try and assess the scale of the hypocalcaemia problem on dairy and beef farms as well as look at the impact it has on the farm and productivity.

Boehringer says milk fever is currently thought to affect between 4-9% of the UK’s dairy cows, with the subclinical form affecting up to 39%.^1,2

The survey will provide another up-to-date figure to compare with existing data and look at any regional trends that might exist.

Farmers are being encouraged to complete the survey regardless of whether they believe milk fever is an issue on their farm or not.

Bovikalc Brand Manager, Mathieu Maignan said: "We are really keen to find out about the real-life experience of milk fever and what really matters to farmers so that we can use this knowledge to improve the approach to managing the condition."

Kath Aplin, Veterinary Adviser at Boehringer Ingelheim (pictured right), is hoping to find out more about the recognition of the signs of subclinical milk fever in particular. She said: "Milk fever is not always well recognised by farmers as a predisposing factor in a number of conditions associated around transition, in particular. It will be really interesting to see if they feel there is a connection between those conditions and low calcium levels and how this affects which animals they target with calcium supplementation and other interventions."

The survey will run until 31^st August 2019. The results will be shared with the farming and veterinary community alongside any insights gained into ways to improve the approach to milk fever.

References

1. Husband (2005) In Practice 27, 88-92
2. Sampson et al (2009) Veterinary Therapeutics 10 (3) 131 - 139

The British Veterinary Orthopaedic Association is hosting a basic level, small group, practical orthopaedic course at the Leonardo Royal Hotel in London on Wednesday the 11th October 2023.

Presented by Andy Moores and Alex Belch, 'Plates and Screws - An Introduction' is aimed at surgeons with no prior experience of applying plates and screws, and offers seven hours of CPD.

Andy said: "If you've ever wondered if orthopaedics is for you, or you just need an introductory course to get you started, this could be the perfect opportunity. 

"The course should be particularly useful for junior colleagues: the tutors are very friendly and it's great value thanks to sponsorship from Veterinary Instrumentation and the BVOA.  

Tickets cost £200 (plus £40 for non-members): https://bvoa.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Plating-registration-form.pdf 

The BVOA 60th Anniversary Conference follows from 12th-14th October at the same venue. 

Titled "Back to the Future, the conference features talks by Mike Farrell, Antonio Pozzi, Stuart Carmichael and others, covering subjects such as fracture repair, joint pathology, imaging techniques and osteoarthritis.

There'll also be a chance to look round HMS Belfast, and a gala black tie dinner. 

Tickets start at £250 for a single day, up to £795 for the full conference package. 

The Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) has added Metacam for Horses to its 'list of detection times'.

According to the manufacturer, Boehringher Ingelheim Vetmedica, Metacam (meloxicam) is the first preferential COX-2 inhibitor to be added to this list, and has stated plasma and urine detection times of 72 hours administered intravenously or orally¹. This is the shortest urine detection time of the NSAIDs available for use in horses, and compares to the 168-hour (7 days) detection time for phenylbutazone stated by the FEI.

Craig Beck, equine sales and marketing manager for Boehringer Ingelheim in the UK and Ireland said: "We have been very happy to work in partnership with the FEI to provide the robust data that has supported the FEI in their analysis of Metacam. Metacam is an important addition to the FEI list, that will help vets treating competition horses. There is now a modern and proven NSAID which extends the therapeutic options available to vets."

Metacam is licensed in horses for the alleviation of inflammation and relief of pain associated with musculo-skeletal disorders or colic.

For further information, please contact your Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica territory manager or call 01344 746959.

1 Detection Time agreed with the European Horse Racing Scientific Liaison Committee (EHSLC)

Bayer Animal Health has launched Back to Basics, a new guide to antibiotic use which focuses on the concerns raised by vets and vet students about antibiotics in a survey carried out by the company.

465 vets and 40 students took part in the survey in March 2014. Of these:

• 61% of vets said that they prescribe an antibiotic product every day that they have patient contact.
• 52% of vets and 64% of vet students were unable to name, unprompted, even one specific drug licensed for use in cats and dogs from each of the major classes of antibiotics.
• 63% of vets said that they would like to better understand how antibiotics work and when to prescribe them. 
• 50% admitted they would like to feel more confident in using a wider range of antibiotics appropriately in their patients.
• 81% of vets confirmed that the topic of antibiotic resistance is something that concerns them for the future.
• 87% said that they felt a responsibility to do what they can to help reduce it. 
• Only 42% of vets said the topic of antibiotic resistance is something that frequently factors into their clinical decisions.
• Only 14% said they would feel confident discussing with a peer how likely it is that a specific antibiotic will contribute to resistance.

27% of vets admitted that they struggle to know which antibiotic is the most appropriate for a specific condition. This uncertainty was particularly the case if the patient is un-responsive to the vet's first choice antibiotic, or the condition develops to require a new or additional antibiotic choice. Bayer says it is also clear that many vets may not be aware that pradofloxacin is the least likely of the veterinary fluoroquinolones to select for antibiotic resistance,² as 23% of vet students and 9% of vets said they believe that all antibiotics carry the same risk of selecting for resistance.

The company says Back to Basics is designed to fill the gaps in knowledge identified by the survey. It presents each of the major classes of veterinary antibiotic and details how they work. It also includes an antibiotics 'jargon buster' to help vets and vet students better understand the commonly used measures of antibiotic activity and make more informed decisions about the use of antibiotics in practice.

Bayer has also developed an online self-assessment quiz that allows vets and students to check their knowledge. The quiz and the guide are both available at www.veraflox.co.uk

References

• Bayer Animal Health survey of 465 practising UK vets and 40 students in clinical years. March 2014.
• Wetzstein, HG. Comparative mutant prevention concentrations of pradofloxacin and other veterinary fluoroquinolones indicate differing potentials in preventing selection of resistance. Antimicrob Agents Chemother.2005;49(10):4166-4173 .

Britain's dairy industry is doomed unless it takes more effective steps to control the spread of endemic diseases like tuberculosis and bovine virus diarrhoea, according to a leading cattle vet.

At a conference on infectious disease at the Royal Veterinary College last week, Devon practitioner Dick Sibley warned that the management and economic trends in the UK dairy industry are increasing the risk of disease transmission - and its potential impact once it does enter a herd.

Figures he obtained from the British Cattle Movements Service show that about four million cattle, or half the total UK cattle herd, are moved from one premises to another each year. Those being sent for slaughter were unlikely to spread infections but moving cattle of unknown disease status to new premises greatly increased the risk of bringing in new diseases. "If you set out to design a system that guarantees that we will continue to have problems with endemic disease then I could not think of a better one than this," he said.

Cattle numbers are increasing in those areas like Devon and Cheshire which already have among the highest population densities for dairy animals in the world - and are also the main hot spots in the current bovine TB epidemic. Farmers feel compelled to buy in heifers from as far afield as Germany and Holland to replace animals culled as TB reactors, as they will lose bonus payments from customers who demand that they maintain constant levels of production.

Several other factors also increase the likely impact of disease in a previously healthy herd - the concentration of cattle numbers into fewer but larger units, the growing emphasis on cattle kept indoors all year round and breeding for high yielding animals that are more vulnerable to disease. Meanwhile, a shortage of skilled manpower means that half the available stockmen are shared between farms and can therefore be responsible for bringing in disease.

But farmers have little or no control over some of the more important risk factors - particularly movements of badgers and the presence of diseased herds on neighbouring premises. "So these farmers with big herds in high density areas and neighbours that have the disease are done for unless we can do something serious to manage the risks."

Dairy farmers can work with their veterinary advisers to reduce risk using the four main pillars of disease control - improved biosecurity, better surveillance, appropriate vaccination and containment of disease transmission within the herd. But diseases also had to be tackled on a national level and if DEFRA is unwilling to take on the task, he proposed the creation of an independent livestock disease agency with sufficient staff and resources to carry out its remit. The costs of running such a body should be shared among all those stakeholders with an interest in preserving an economically viable dairy industry, including, for example the cereal producers who provide the dairy industry with much of its food materials, he suggested.

A new study carried out to look at the efficacy of spinosad (Comfortis) in cats has shown that they can acquire a flea infestation even when kept in a controlled laboratory environment. 

The study was conducted on a laboratory colony of 15 cats that had been kept strictly indoors for at least a year, four of which had presented to the dermatology clinics of the Small Animal Hospital of the Toulouse Veterinary School, two with miliary dermatitis lesions and two with symmetrical alopecia.

Further investigation revealed that despite these animals having been confined to quarters for so long, adult Ctenocephalides felis and flea dirt were found on coat brushing. 

All the cats were then combed meticulously twice at the start of the study using an extra fine comb and fleas counted before being replaced on each cat. In total 60 fleas were counted. On the cats showing no lesions there was an average of 5.2 fleas per cat and on the cats exhibiting flea allergy dermatitis it was less than one. Two of these cats had no fleas on them, probably due to excessive grooming caused by pruritus.

Spinosad was found to be 100% effective, with no adult fleas found on any cat from day 15 of the study through to day 90.

The cats with skin lesions were assessed for pruritus levels using the SCORFAD system, an extent and severity scale for feline hypersensitivity dermatitis. The SCORFAD value rapidly decreased throughout the study and achieved 98% reduction by day 90. The skin lesions in the flea allergic cats completely resolved during this time without the use of any other flea control or the use of anti-inflammatory products on the cats.

Researchers Maria-Christine Cadiergues and Charline Pressanti from Toulouse Veterinary School also noted a greater level of palatability than previously reported in clinical trials and there were no side effects in any of the cats.

Reviewing the study, David Grant MBE BVetMed CertSAD FRCVS said: "This study confirms that indoor cats, even in a tightly controlled laboratory environment, can still acquire an infestation of fleas. These can be brought in on the clothes of owners of cats if they have been in the garden, for example, particularly in the summer. 

"In addition, flea allergic cats may have few fleas on them due to excessive grooming caused by pruritus, and it is often very difficult to persuade owners of the diagnosis, even more so with indoor cats. This study provides precise data to support the above statement.

"This study also demonstrates that spinosad can be used as a stand-alone treatment for mild to moderate flea infestation in an indoor environment without the need for environmental insecticides or anti-inflammatory treatment of the cats. This would be a major consideration for many cat owners." 

Reference

1. Marie-Christine Cadiergues and Charline Pressanti, "Efficacy of Spinosad Tablets Administered to a Colony of 15 Indoor Cats Naturally Infested with Fleas," ISRN Veterinary Science, vol. 2014, Article ID 484308, 4 pages, 2014.doi:10.1155/2014/484308