Continuing Education

This course will look at what is needed to operate a successful dentistry unit. As well as practical oral anatomy knowledge, dental nomenclature and dental equipment and instrumentation, the course covers how to take a whole mouth series of dental radiographs. An important focus isthe management of the most common disease in dogs: periodontal disease - from the consulting room to the surgery and then back to the home including treatment, homecare advice and disease prevention.

This course aims to give general practitioners the tools to confidently formulate a diagnostic when presented with an anaemic dog or cat.

Lacerations are very common in horses. There are myriad ways to handle them and often we get stuck in our ways. This course aims to briefly review the basics but then expand to cover assessment, debridement, closure, stabilisation, monitoring, complications and managing expectations. The emphasis is on trying to push the boundaries to some degree on options so you feel confident to try some new things in handling this common injury in horses and achieve improved outcomes.

This course aims to help you get the best out of your histopathology submissions, including how to optimize your biopsies, fix them appropriately and avoid annoying artefacts which can lead to non-diagnostic samples. Practical advice on how to approach particularly challenging samples, such as limb amputations, spleens and large tumours, is covered. The course also provides critical information on to include on the submission form, how tumour margins are assessed, and an insight into what happens in a histology laboratory.

In this course participants will gain understanding of the peculiarities associated with anaesthesia in species that may be relatively less commonly presented in general veterinary practice such as pet rabbits, guinea pigs, birds and reptiles, but may require anaesthesia to facilitate handling, and diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Participants will apply their fundamental knowledge and skills in anaesthesia to devise anaesthetic protocols by taking into consideration the risks associated with anaesthesia, the unique anatomy and physiology and responses to anaesthesia , and to be able to respond to common peri-anaesthetic complications.

Ophthalmic surgery is often put in the too hard basket and referred on to specialists. This course is designed to give you a better understanding of the principles and practicalities of performing eye surgery with the aim of expanding the range of procedures you can confidently offer your clients. The course will feature a number of video procedures to help guide your learning. Veterinary nurses with a special interest in the topic are welcome to enrol in this course. Please be aware that the course is designed for qualified veterinarians and you should consider this in light of your knowledge and experience before you register.

This course focuses on practical wound management in busy small animal clinics. We will discuss wound management from acute traumatic to chronic non-healing and multidrug resistant infections. Our focus will not be on complex surgical skin grafts but on methods that can be performed by any vet in practice, without the use of restricted antimicrobials. Wound cleaning, multi-drug resistant wound infections and managing healing without skin grafts will be covered, and case studies will be used to demonstrate the differences between wound healing and management in dogs and cats.

What are the differences between dogs and cats in their nutritional requirements? How can you use this knowledge to better advise owners about how to feed their animals?

Minimise your stress during surgery and expedite patient recovery post-surgery by mastering new skills and enhancing your knowledge. Over time, even the most diligent professionals can fall into suboptimal habits, especially when working on your own or without feedback from colleagues. Refresh your skills through a review of the important fundamentals of surgery and the opportunity to practice these skills in a wet lab environment. This workshop is perfectly tailored for returning practitioners, recent graduates, and seasoned vets seeking to refine their surgical techniques.

Exotics emergencies require special skills and knowledge. Whether you’re working in an emergency clinic or general practice this course will develop the skills and confidence you need to deal with these often-challenging presentations. The aim of this course is to outline fundamental skills and understandings with which every clinician treating exotics should be familiar, with a focus on species commonly and legally kept in Australia including birds, small mammals and reptiles. The course will cover triage and basic supportive care as well as the hospitalisation needs of exotic patients.

Feline emergencies are especially hard and stressful!!! Because cats are more fragile than dogs, they hide their signs and tend to present late, when they are hanging onto life by a thread. So, managing feline emergences is more of an art than a science, although it has a pathophysiological basis. The secret is often “less is more” – sedate them, let them get their cool in an oxygen cage, and get everything you need ready. Then support them along the diagnostic pathway and work out the best way to fix them. Point of care ultrasound has changed many of the classic approaches to emergency medicine in the cat. Drug recommendations have evolved and shifted and often times, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to management. So it’s timely the CVE revisits this topic in a dynamic 2-day program put together by Rachel Korman, Kath Briscoe and Lara Boland – three very experienced but accessible feline specialists. In addition, Ashlie Saffire (US-based feline specialist) will offer an international perspective; neurologist Stacey Brady will provide the latest in management of neurological presentations and Nick Cleland (surgeon) rounds out the program. This conference will suit people who already are doing emergency work who want to lift their game. In addition, we think one person from every general practice should do this course – to teach the rest of the team what’s new and what’s changed in the approach to the critical cat.

Have you ever had a trauma patient arrive, and all you can think of is ‘where do I start?’ This course is designed for emergency veterinarians as well as general practitioners around how to deal with traumatic emergencies.

Dentistry is a significant part of companion animal practice – and it’s becoming more so. Do you have the skills to confidently approach the surgical management of dental disease? Can you perform the procedures needed with efficiency whilst minimising complications to your patient?

Patient side testing not only allows us to diagnose conditions quickly and efficiently, but it can also be reliable and cost effective. Join Luke Johnson, CVE tutor and ANZCVS Small Animal Medicine Chapter President, as he discusses new and time-tested patient side tests available in veterinary medicine. These tests are often undervalued, in this presentation we will learn how sometimes the simplest of tests can be the most important tools at our disposal in the hospital setting.

Perennially popular tutors Jill Maddison and Sue Bennett present this course where the learning begins the way it does in the clinic: with a focus on the presenting problem. This 8-module course will advance your problem-solving skills to develop a rational, pathophysiologically-based approach to diagnosing and managing internal medicine cases. An emphasis on reflection and self-analysis of the way you process and work up cases will challenge you and help you to improve your approach in practice. In this way you will be able to develop a logical problem-solving framework that will carry through into more successful and rewarding management of your patients. The workshops will provide an opportunity to interrogate your methodology and discuss approaches with your peers and tutors. If you are interested in sitting the small animal medicine membership examinations for the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists (ANZCVS), this is a wonderful preparation for you.

Unlike heart disease, chronic renal insufficiency and arthritis, cancer is potentially curable. Advances in chemotherapy and other treatment options have increased the options for palliative care, so that animals can have a prolonged life rather than a prolonged death. This course provides an overview of cancer biology, common chemotherapeutics, other therapies including surgery and radiation, paraneoplastic syndromes, lymphoma, sarcomas, round cell tumours and the complete approach to the cancer patient. Develop the skills to obtain a tissue diagnosis without compromising the patient, tailor  treatment plans for patients with co-morbidities and curate comprehensive palliative care protocols where the emphasis is on quality of life. Know that you are offering your patients – and their people – the most contemporary options and maximising the patient’s welfare.

Behaviour problem or problem behaviour? Learn to differentiate and maximise treatment success. Improve your ability to help your clients better understand their pets’ behaviour and learn to best manage anxiety, aggression and other common behavioural problems. Discover the latest updates in behavioural pharmacology – the when, why, how and which of psychotropic medications. A knowledge of behaviour is integral in maximising patient welfare. A positive experience in your practice for both patient and client will enhance satisfaction for pet, vet and the owner!

Make the most of in-house clinical pathology and achieve accurate, rapid diagnoses. Do you want to maximise the benefits of your bench-top analyser and in-house pathology? Achieve rapid, cost-effective diagnoses with increased confidence? Ensure that your bench-top analyser is providing accurate information? This course will expand and refine your diagnostic skills across a range of modalities including biochemistry, haematology, acid-base balance, urinalysis, endocrinology, blood smear evaluation, urine sediment evaluation and cytology. You will be guided through a range of practical techniques that will grow your confidence and ensure you are getting the best out of your in-house machines, as well as from external pathology services.

Develop your capacity to treat small animal emergency and critical care cases confidently and maximise your patient outcomes. This course aims to develop your practical skills and techniques for the treatment and monitoring of critically ill animals. Triage, fluid therapy, analgesia, acute abdomen, respiratory distress and multisystem trauma are all covered with an emphasis on case-based problem solving.

Three enthusiastic and knowledgeable tutors guide you through 10 modules designed to increase your confidence in your ability to diagnose and treat your small animal patients.

Develop your ability and confidence to investigate, diagnose and manage your ocular cases, every single time and know when you should be recommending referral. Learn the fundamentals of a thorough ocular exam from the front to the back of the eye. Case-based learning will increase your confidence in handling ophthalmology in general, equine, or small animal practice

Improve your diagnostic skills and avoid common mistakes in thoracic diagnosis. Thoracic radiography is one of the most useful clinical tests undertaken in clinical practice and yet one of the most frequently cited areas of confusion. This course aims to increase your ability to take optimal thoracic radiographs and to interpret them confidently. The modules focus on radiographic interpretation, with incorporation of complementary imaging modalities, particularly CT and sonography, to assist in explanations of the radiographic pathological patterns present.

Beyond broken bones - Increase your diagnostic accuracy and confidence. This comprehensive course will take your understanding of musculoskeletal imaging and pathology to a new level. Learn to refine the quality of your digital images and enhance your interpretation of radiographs of the appendicular and axial skeleton and joints.