16 Jul 2020
More than 400 delegates from across Europe – close to double the number of the first – attend second Graduate Academy Conference, which was staged virtually and provided 30 hours of CPD.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
IVC Evidensia’s second Graduate Academy Conference was a major success for the organisation, scoring more than 400 delegates from across the UK and mainland Europe across five days.
The pandemic may have hit plans for a face-to-face event, but organisers were determined the show would go on, instead making the event virtual.
Delegates were able to check an app to help schedule and book their preferred lectures ahead of time, with more than 30 hours of CPD available in two simultaneous streams that covered pet nutrition, referrals, cardiology, soft skills and well-being.
Sessions aimed at equine and farm vets also featured.
A community section allowed participants to interact with each other, and they could visit stands featuring IVC Evidensia’s commercial partners for the conference.
IVC’s graduate academy supports vets during their first year in practice with the group, providing access to a range of CPD, support of a clinical coach and various networking opportunities with peers.
Juliet Pope, group graduate academy manager, said: “The vets within the graduate academy have had their path through our programme interrupted in ways that no one could have predicted a few months ago.
“Consequently, the graduate academy team was very happy rather than having simply to cancel the event as so many other conferences have been cancelled, to instead be able to present the annual conference as a virtual event.
“I was particularly pleased that offering the conference this way enabled so many more of our graduates from mainland Europe to join and benefit from the huge variety of content than would typically be possible for a face-to-face event.”
The inaugural conference had been held in the grounds of the University of Warwick and had attracted 250 delegates.
Donald Kingsnorth, group veterinary advisor at IVC Evidensia, said: “We knew we couldn’t bring everyone together as we did last year, but we wanted to make sure our graduates had a useful and interesting conference that would really help them in practice.
“The emphasis was on the fact that the lectures were live and interactive, but, as we know, life in practice is tough at the moment, and we didn’t want to add to that burden.
“That’s why the lectures were scheduled for the afternoon so our graduates could work in practice in the morning and then pick the lectures to attend in the afternoons.”
