Congress 2024- Thursday

Adverse food reactions

• Appreciate how common adverse food reactions in dogs and cats are and understand how they can exist as single entities or co-exist with AD
• What are the clinical signs of adverse food reactions in dogs and cats?
• How can we diagnose food reactions and what are the options? Why food serology is not always helpful.

Tips for a sucessful elimination diet trial

• How to select novel proteins or hydrolysed foods
• Understand the duration of food trials, foods to avoid, and potential pitfalls. Understand when a shortened food trial maybe useful
• Tips to increase owner compliance and successful food trials
• this recording will be available until end of October 2024

RCVS will be running a session in the Exhibition Theatre where Hayley Stinchon will explain (EMS) policy and guidance

Case-based approach to bacterial infections in dogs

• Understand the different types of bacterial skin infections of dogs - surface, superficial and deep
• Using clinical cases and images, be able to recognise and understand the visual appearance of these lesions
• To understand when to use topicals versus systemic treatment based on the type of infection (depth)

Skin and ear culture: why and when should I do it?

• Understand the circumstances when you should collect an ear and skin culture swab
• Assessment of the culture results: a case baesd approach. What do the results tell you and how should ythey be applied to the case?
• Acknowledge and understand the importance of antimicrobial stewardship and how this can be applied to dermatology cases - what can we do to avoid using systemic antibiotics
• this recording will be available until end of October 2024

Update on the prevention and treatment of arterial thromboembolism in cats

• Identify the main medications available for prevention of ATE in cats
• Identify risk factors associated with poor prognosis in cats with ATE
• Understand the treatment goals of ATE in cats

Diet-induced dilated cardiomyopathy

• Identify the breeds most commonly affected by taurine deficiency
• Understand the current knowledge and association between grain-free, legume rich diets (non-traditional diets) and DCM
• Understand the diagnosis and treatment strategies of diet induced DCM

Approach to challenging cats

• Understand the reasons for aggressive behaviour in cats
• Understand the appropriate response when experiencing feline aggression in the clinic
• Understand key principles of preventing feline aggression in the clinic

Approach to challenging dogs

• Understand the reasons for aggressive behaviour in dogs
• Understand the appropriate response when experiencing dog aggression in the clinic
• Understand key principles of preventing feline aggression in the clinic

Point-of-care ultrasound in emergency cases: is it cardio?

• Understand the main goals in POCUS
• Demonstrate a common POCUS protocol and identify useful echocardiographic views in POCUS
• Identify echo findings suggestive of heart failure in POCUS

Diuretic therapy in heart failure: what are the options?

• Identify common diuretics used in congestive heart failure
• Understand diuretic treatment strategies in acute and chronic heart failure (stage C)
• Discuss the rationale between using torasemide versus furosemide as first line diuretic treatment and in refractrory heart failure

Acromegaly

• Appreciate the importance of acromegaly in feline diabetes
• Know how to diagnose the condition, and specifically understand the importance of not relying on facial changes to identify the condition
• Be able to guide clients through the various treatment options

Hyperadrenocorticism

• Appreciate the importance of hyperadrenocorticism in canine and feline diabetes
• Know how to diagnose the condition
• Be able to treat canine and feline cases

Approach to environmental allergy testing

• Understand when and why to recommend allergy testing in dogs and cats, and appreciate it is not used for a diagnosis
• Understand the options available for allergy testing: IDT and serology and when to use one over the other
• How to interpret the allergy results: how does this help us and what to do next.

Immunotherapy options

• Discuss the options available for delivery of immunotherapy
• Understand how and why immunotherapy works and the success rate of using this therapy
• Understand when to assess the response to immunotherapy and how this might be done
• this recording will be available until end of October 2024

Flat faced breeds and skin/ear disease

• Common skin issues of brachycephalic dogs
• Appreciate that skin disease in brachy dogs appears to be more severe and requires early intervention
• What are the challenges we have with treating these patients? Treatment limitations and behavioural changes
• Understand the common ear diseases of brachycephalic dogs including: AD, narrow ears, PSOM
• Learn how to recognise PSOM as a differential and how to fully investigate
• How to treat PSOM, the current options and preventative options

How can we reduce the failure rate of diabetic management

• Communication
• Drug delivery
• Practice support
• Effective monitoring

Looking into the future of cardiology

• Discuss future advances in medical treatment, cardiac imaging, biomarkers and the impact/role of AI in cardiology

Behavioural first aid

• Understand the concept of behavioural first aid
• Appreciate the most commonly presented behavioural issues and what questions to ask
• Appreciate the difference between training and behaviour: who and how to refer

Behavioural medication

• Understand the basic rational for use of behavioural mediciations
• Understand the relationship between medication and behaviour modification
• Understanding the importance of client comms - including the barriers to medication use

Echocardiography in myxomatous mitral valve disease:how to define severity and prognosis

• Understand echocardiographic staging of MMVD
• Identify echocardiographic predictors of worse outcome
• Understand different strategies to quantify MMVD severity on echo

Atrial firbrillation in dogs: news from clinical research

• Understand different therapeutic strategies in atrial fibrillation: rhythm versus rate control
• Identify the first line anti-arrhythmic treatment for rate control in atrial fibrillation
• Understand treatment goals in atrial fibrillation and factors associated with worse outcome

Practice and process design: dogs

• Understand the needs of dogs from the practice environment
• Identify realistic adaptations within the practice environment which impact on the wellbeing of dogs
• Understand the key client communication principles for embedding dog friendly principles

Practice and process design: cats

• Understand the needs of cats from the practice environment
• Identify realistic adaptations within the practice environment which impact on the wellbeing of cats
• Understand the key client communication principles for embedding cat friendly principles
• Understand different approaches to handling dogs and cats
• Understand how owner presence may influence behaviour
• Consider how owners can prepare their pets for visiting the clinic

Mining the research: should this paper change what I do?

• Explain what differentiates good science from mediocre or bad science
• Decide when new information is relevant to your practice and when statistics matter
• Demonstrate how to progress care by using EBVM techniques in real life

Knowledge summaries: can they really change clinical practice?

• Explain how the strength of evidence affects the impact of a knowledge summary on current clinical practice
• Synthesise the information within a knowledge summary
• Synthesise whether the evidence suggests a change in current clinical practice

An introduction to agnotology

• Understand what agnotology is, and what disinformation and misinformation are within science and medicine
• Understand some of the methods used by vested interests to create and disseminate disinformation and misinformation within (veterinary) medical science
• Understand why disinformation and misinformation within science and medicine are often difficult to identify and counter.

An introduction to SGLT2 inhibitors and the USA experience

• Know the mechanism of action of SGLT-2 inhibitors and be able to compare with other oral hypoglycaemics and insulin
• Understand why SGLT2 inhibitors work well in many cases of feline (but not canine) diabetes. Understand which cases of feline diabetes mellitus are not suitable for SGLT-2 inhibitors
• Be aware of the evidence supporting the use of SGLT-2 inhibitors in several USA studies

How and when I use SGLT-2 inhibitors

• Understand the particular problems of SGLT-2 inhibitors, specifically the recognition of euglycaemic ketoacidosis and its subsequent treatment
• Know how to start SGLT-2 inhibitors and how to monitor their effect in diabetic cats

This session in the Exhibition Theatre with Richard Everson and Lorraine Fleming covers pressure lowering treatments

Just culture theory

• Describe what just culture is.
• Consider what lessons can be learned from human healthcare
• Identify why a no blame culture is not possible in veterinary practice

Just culture in practice

• Consider how we can implement JC in practice

Clark Dental Veterinary will be running a session in the Exhibition Theatre where Alex Smithson will explain how to avoid complications within dentistry

This session in the Exhibition Theatre with Richard Everson and Lorraine Fleming covers Treatment of ‘dry eye’ patients

Where are we now?

• Discuss perceptions of what the culture of vet practice is like currently?
• Consider what are the challenges that might exist are?
• Analyse how we might overcome challenges