1 Jun 2016
For five days this spring, an intrepid group of Brits abroad attended the North American Veterinary Community 2016 Conference. Among them was VBJ editorial board member Alison Lambert, who explains why more of us should be making the trip.
Alison Lambert
Job Title
Image: © J Michael Photography/Fotolia.
Until now, the North American Veterinary Community (NAVC)Conference has felt like a well-kept secret to the small, yet enlightened, group of British vets, business owners and practice managers who make the trip each year. But I hope what follows will demonstrate exactly why you really need to put it in your diary and get your tickets booked.
Of course, being in the US, the social side of the event was just as massive as the work part – comedy gigs, yoga sessions, a Sheryl Crow concert and endless enormous portions of food and drink – all just minutes away from the area’s best attractions, including Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando.
Plus, with an average daytime temperature of 21°C in January, what’s not to like?
The NAVC Conference has been held in Florida for many years now, hosted across two sites, one whose name never fails to raise a titter after the inevitable poolside margarita: the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center and Orlando World Center Marriott. However, next year the event will be hosted in just one venue, the Orange County Convention Center, and take place between 4 and 8 February.
The annual NAVC Conference is huge by any standard: this year 17,328 delegates came from all 50 US states, joined by others from more than 80 countries around the world, with more than 1,200 CPD hours available over the course of the event. After a hard day in the lecture halls, visiting Brits then got the opportunity to meet up with fellow alumni from UK veterinary schools; sharing news and putting the world to rights at a perennially popular evening jointly organised by the Glasgow and London schools of veterinary medicine.
CPD sessions covered anything and everything related to veterinary medicine and practice, ranging from panda science to eye surgery in fish; business management to holistic medicine and wet labs.
Each day begins with a breakfast seminar at 6:30am, and every early session is packed (this may have something to do with the lovely breakfast provided).
One of the most thought-provoking of these seminars covered the subject of pet insurance; despite the fact the human health system is predominantly funded by workplace insurance providers, in the US only one per cent of pets are insured.
While the picture is clearly very different to ours here in the UK, the session provided a great insight into the different communication strategies and tactical approaches being undertaken by vets and insurers across the US.
I attended the conference on a practice manager tariff, giving access to five days of management and business content for just less than £200 – value for money that’s pretty hard to beat. With clinician passes costing US$555 (£385), attending the NAVC Conference is a highly recommended component of any UK vet’s annual CPD budget.
John Hill, founder of the British Bee Veterinary Association and retired partner of Glenburn Veterinary Surgeons in County Antrim, visited the NAVC Conference for this first time this year.
“Although I am no longer practising, I love to keep abreast of latest developments in veterinary medicine, both within and outside the small animal field I worked in for so many years. It’s not every day you get to move from a session about evaluating the urinary system in reptiles to one entitled ‘giant panda and polar bear medicine made easy’, or ‘lemur paediatrics’, or – surely the next craze to hit BSAVA Congress in April – hyperbaric chambers.
“While there may not be too much call for that level of detail in the average Northern Ireland practice, listening to fellow vets discussing problem-solving and best practice is always valuable.
“Sometimes we need to think outside the box a bit more and, for me, the NAVC Conference offered the perfect opportunity to do just that, while meeting up with old friends in sunnier climes.”
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Adam Tjolle, managing partner at Inglis Vets in Fife, took a new perspective of common issues away from the NAVC Conference.
“I found the conference both stimulating and reassuring – in many sessions we witnessed US vets discussing the actions they planned to take to address business issues we have already faced and tackled here in the UK, while in others, I gained an understanding of trends and behaviours still to unravel over here. It’s always useful to put yourself in a different environment to see our profession from a different angle – there was so much of value in the NAVC Conference programme this year that I’m definitely going to try to go back again. My favourite toy was undoubtedly the hyperbaric chamber – maybe because it is full of hot air too?
“Finally, the fact temperatures were considerably warmer than back home in Scotland helped too, of course.”
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Susie Hill works as a trainer for Onswitch and found the American approach to some common issues both refreshing and enlightening.
“I work with vets and nurses every day to help them build better client communication, developing key skills to strengthen rapport and increase owner compliance. In these CPD sessions we often discuss how a different approach needs to be taken, depending not only on the individual case details, but also on the clients’ specific emotional state.
“The sessions I attended at the NAVC Conference proved the US is way ahead of us here in the UK when it comes to managing end-of-life decisions, as well as tailoring the care of senior pets to their individual needs. I learned lots of clever tips I’ll be able to pass on to attendees of Onswitch’s CPD sessions.”
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Wendy McGrandles, senior vet at Glenbrae Veterinary Clinics, was another NAVC Conference newbie who found the whole experience as valuable as it was fascinating.
“I have long had a keen interest in integrating holistic medicine into conventional practice, having been a registered specialist in homeopathy since 2006, with an interest in acupuncture and herbal medicine.
“The NAVC Conference programme offered a very broad spectrum of approaches that can be hard to find at similar mainstream congresses in the UK and Europe, covering areas as diverse as treating infectious diseases beyond antibiotics and managing neurological dysfunction with complementary medicine.
“Coupled with the opportunity to film my own part in Harry Potter on a visit to Universal Studios, the NAVC experience for me was, for me, not to be missed. I’ll definitely be attending again next year.”
