23 Jan 2025
Wolfgang Dohne
Job Title
The ancient city of Belgrade, nestling on a hill at the confluence of the Danube and the Sava rivers, might not strike you as a natural choice for a place to meet your annual CPD requirements.
Contrary to the scepticism of some of my colleagues, I was not so much drawn to this much-underrated travel location for its vacation appeal, than by the sheer strength of a scientific programme, which – at least in my opinion – was one of the best the continent had to offer in 2024.
Not for the first time I was attending EERVC, the Eastern European Regional Veterinary Conference. Long gone are the days when CPD events in “eastern” Europe were held with predominantly national speakers, in the local language with no translations and – if you were lucky – just a token English-speaking foreign lecturer.
This has, to no small degree, to do with one person: Denis Novak, recipient of the RCVS International Award in 2023.
Croatian by birth, but a lifelong resident of Belgrade, Denis arrived in the UK shortly after the Balkans War and spent two years at both Cambridge and Bristol university vet schools. During this time, former BSAVA president Ray Butcher became his mentor and a pivotal influence for his later professional life. Not only the striving for clinical excellence, but also the proactive sharing of knowledge were central motives that stayed with Denis when he returned to his family run clinic in the Serbian capital.
Step by step, CPD events – not only in the Balkan region, but in the whole of Eastern Europe – were transformed, with English replacing most of the national languages at veterinary conferences and international speakers now becoming a common sight at events also in this part of the continent.
This is demonstrated nowhere more so than at EERVC, the brain child of Denis Novak and the late Michael Day.
Kickstarted eight years ago with the financial backing (which in fact was never needed) and the professional support of BSAVA, the first EERVC opened its doors under the critical eyes of many doubters in Belgrade.
The idea was to provide world-class CPD at a very affordable price, so that all members of the profession could benefit from it. More than 1,000 delegates attended, and the organisers never looked back.
Since then, EERVC has taken place annually at changing venues in Bucharest, Thessaloniki, Ljubljana, Zagreb and, once again last autumn, in Belgrade. There, more than 1,300 delegates from 46 nations were treated to a scientific programme with up to five parallel running lecturing streams, where 20 speakers from 11 different countries shared their expertise.
A double act of Céline Pouzot-Nevoret (Veterinary School of Lyon) and Kris Gommeren (University of Liège and former president of the European Society of Emergency and Critical Care) kicked off the veterinary surgeons’ lectures of two days of presentations, covering various aspects of emergency and critical care medicine in both first opinion and referral settings.
Paulo Steagall provided a highly entertaining interactive presentation on acute pain assessment and management in feline patients with the help of the seemingly never-ending supply of online cat videos. In another presentation, Paulo gave valuable advice to minimise complications and mortality during the anaesthesia of brachycephalic dog breeds. At the same time, Michael Farrell was discussing the benefits of joint supplements and the hidden dangers of unlicensed painkillers in orthopaedic patients.
Another tough decision had to be made to decide to attend the extremely popular neurology stream of Holger Volk, where he covered neurological emergencies, the diagnosis and the management of lumbosacral disease, and the diagnosis of acute non-surgical myelopathies in first opinion practice; or to follow in the neighbouring theatre, the soft tissue surgery stream where Jackie Demetriou gave valuable advice for gall bladder, salivary gland and aural surgery.
On the final day, Gonçalo da Graça Pereira’s behaviour and welfare lectures just could not be missed, nor could the enlightening presentations by Laurent Findji on a huge range of surgical subjects such as the management of facial tumours, thoracic surgery, complex wound closure or surgery of prostatic disease. The scientific programme was accompanied by a well-attended trade exhibition with more than 40 exhibitors and sponsors from all over Europe.
Regardless how exhausted the programme left most delegates, nobody wanted to miss the sold-out congress party at the end of the event. Now firmly established as EERVC’s signature band, Serbian group Perpetuum Mobile had almost 600 veterinary professionals and their partners on the dance floor from the first guitar chord until the early hours of the next morning. Thus is the cult status of this conference, that most delegates return the following years regardless of where the event is held, and lecturers freely admit that they happily attend again, just because of the host’s hospitality and the relaxed atmosphere alone at this unique congress.
While we are in the lucky position to enjoy a generous offering of excellent CPD events on these shores, why not make the new year resolution to attend a veterinary conference abroad once a year, to combine both professional with cultural enrichment?
This year’s EERCV will take place from 22-25 October in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Other excellent English spoken companion animal veterinary events include (among many others) the Federation of Companion Animal Veterinary Associations EuroCongress in Antwerp at the beginning of September, the WSAVA Congress in Rio de Janeiro at the end of September, and the Southern European Veterinary Conference in Seville at the end of October.
