28 Sept 2022
Valley Exotics, based at Valley Veterinary Hospital in Cardiff, has been endorsed as a training site by the European College of Zoological Medicine and can now offer three-year residencies.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Tariq Abou-Zahr.
A vet hospital in Cardiff is flying high after being approved to help train the avian vet specialists of the future.
Valley Exotics, based at Valley Veterinary Hospital in Gwaelod y Garth, has been accredited by the European College of Zoological Medicine (ECZM) as a training site.
It is the only vet hospital in Wales and one of two in the UK to become an ECZM training site, and it will offer a three-year residency for up to two qualified vets wanting to specialise in avian medicine.
Training will be supervised by Tariq Abou-Zahr – a European veterinary specialist in avian medicine and surgery, and an RCVS-recognised specialist in zoo and wildlife medicine (avian).
The accreditation was awarded after Valley Exotics submitted evidence to the ECZM education committee to show it meets the college’s criteria for providing knowledge, facilities and equipment.
Valley Exotics has separate waiting rooms for birds, small animals and reptiles; heated wards; and a separate ward for wildlife patients. It also has an endoscopy suite, CT scanner and in-house laboratory, plus postmortem facilities.
Dr Abou-Zahr said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the training accreditation and I am looking forward to helping vets who want to specialise in avian medicine achieve their career goals.
“It’s great to be able to offer vets this opportunity and without training hospitals like ours, we wouldn’t be able to have more specialists. This is very important because there is an increasing demand from clients for specialist veterinary care for their pets.”
