NEVA
NEWSLETTER
JANUARY 2016
North of England Veterinary Association
2015-2016
President: Colin Skinner: [email protected]
Hon. Treasurer: Jane Barwick-Nesbit: [email protected]
Hon. Secretary: Dick Thompson: [email protected]
(The Barn, Corridge Farm, Middleton, Morpeth, Northumberland. NE61 4EB)
NEVA PRESIDENT’s REPORT - Colin Skinner MRCVS
NEVA has enjoyed a very successful year and is one of the most active regional Divisions of the
BVA. Since the last AGM your Council has held 6 meetings to discuss national issues affecting the profession raised by the BVA and ensuring that opinions of members in the North of England are heard. Douglas Palmer remains our BVA Regional Representative on Council, but NEVA Council is also represented
on BVA’s Members Services Group by Paul Freeman and their Animal Welfare Group by Jacqui Paterson.
Your Association received a surprise bequest of £1000 from the estate of Joseph Mitcheson,
MRCVS from Consett who was a member of NEVA. We have sent a letter of appreciation for this to his
family. Council has decided this sum should be put towards running Young Vet Network events.
New members of Council, Becky Marr and Sara Jackson, who are both fairly recent graduates,
have injected a breath of fresh air into your Council. Becky has stimulated fresh activity into the YVN
and I was very impressed by the gathering in November as Becky reports inside.
Jane Weeks has organised most of our 9 CPD events during the year, ending in a flurry of meetings in the last quarter, my personal thanks for her excellent work. Jane Barwick-Nesbit has continued
as treasurer and Paul Freeman has recently upgraded our NEVA (www.neva.org.uk) website and posted
all the latest information on Council members, Newsletters and CPD events.
Dick Thompson has ably taken over the role of Hon Secretary and can take credit for improving communication with the membership. He has recently produced an updated version of the NEVA Constitution
which awaits your approval at the AGM to become legally binding - I hope to see lots of you there!
NEVA AGM - THURSDAY MARCH 3RD 2016
Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday March 3rd next year at The Badger, Ponteland. In case anyone
doesn’t know it this is on the A686, just past the Airport heading North, and on the same site as Dobbies Garden Centre. There will be a Poster with further details sent out in Feb.
We would welcome any member to join us and discuss NEVA’s performance over the last 12 months, please let me
know in advance if possible but not absolutely necessary. We expect that Junior Vice
President, David Tyson, will move up to be President for 2016-2017 and we would welcome any nominations for Junior Vice President, CPD organiser (as Jane Weeks will be
stepping down) and for the 2 council positions that become vacant annually on rotation.
Once again we will be extremely pleased to welcome the current BVA President to our
AGM. Sean Wensley MRCVS qualified from Liverpool University in 2003 and as such
is the youngest President in recent memory - he wasn’t even born when your hon sec
attended the same institution!! He has since found time to study for a Masters in Applied
Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare - a cause that he is still very passionate about.
Sean will give us an after dinner talk from the BVA perspective and then field questions
from the floor. This is your chance to meet and quiz an important leader in our profession - so we look forward to a good attendance.
North Of England Young Vet Network
The newly revamped North of England Young Vet Network held
their first meeting on 10th November 2015 at the Town Wall Pub,
Pink Lane, Newcastle. The aim of the meeting was to bring together
as many young vets in the region as possible. The meeting was a
purely social occasion and much fun was had by all!
There was a fantastic turnout of over twenty young vets with people
having travelled from as far as the Borders and Darlington to be
there and NEVA president Colin called in to show NEVA's support..
Feedback from the evening was very positive with many people saying that it was lovely to chat to people
going through similar things to them and to hear how their experiences of working life compare. Many
new friendships were formed and everyone followed the 'you mustn't only speak to people from your
practice' rule very well!
The event was publicised through the new North of England Young Vet Network page run by BVA recent
graduate rep (and NEVA council member) Becky Marr. The page has been active for less than 6 months
and has almost 150 members. Becky has established a small committee to help organise events and the
plan for the new year is to organise more social evenings and possibly some CPD depending on what the
members want. The best way to hear about upcoming events or contribute to discussions is to join the
Facebook page (search North of England Young Vet Network) or email Becky directly:
[email protected]. Any vet working in the region and up to 8 years post qualification is welcome to
join. Hopefully 2016 will see the Young Vet Network grow and strengthen...watch this space!
NEVA CPD REPORTS
FARM ANIMAL POST-MORTEM
COURSE
11th NOVEMBER - Hamsterley Co Durham
NEVA were pleased to support a BVA initiative to
increase the availabily of instruction of correct Post
Mortem examinations procedure with this full day
‘workshop’. Instructor Ben Strugnell demonstrated,
using an unfortunately generous supply of material,
dissection and correct sample collecting on calf and
sheep carcsasses,. He was able to show several interesting conditions and diseases as well as the absence
of pathology in a still born calf.
Ben and Dick (his ‘trusty manservant’ on the day) hope that the attending practitioners enjoyed the day
and are finding their new found skills very useful.
NEVA, with Ben’s full support, are prepared to re-run this course later in the year but need 10-12
veterinary surgeons to pre-register so that costs can be managed. Dick ([email protected]
will keep a running list so if you are interested in joining us next year please contact him.
JONATHON BELL - WEAR REFERRALS
SPINAL DISEASE - The Neuro Exam and when to refer
Tuesday November 17th
Jonathan has been working for Wear Referrals since January 2014 and is a
European Specialist in Small Animal Surgery enjoying all aspects of soft
tissue, orthopaedic and spinal surgery with a current interest in
interventional radiography.
His NEVA talk was in 2 main parts. The first described in very practical and
understandable terminology the basics of a first opinion examination on
suspicion of spinal disease - where to push, prod and poke in order to guage
the severity and approximate location of the problem. This developed into the
role of radiology, inc myelography compared to the much more useful MRI.
The importance of rapid referral was recommended - call first to discuss!
The second part dealt with the referral surgeon’s role in the process of
Accurately assessing potential lesions and deciding whether the patient is a
good surgical candidate, as well as preferred pain control options. Although
degenerative disc disease is the most common diagnosis there are others!!
SUE RANDELL MRCVS, IDEXX
- MONITORING RENAL DISEASE
After working in her native South Africa, followed by the USA, Sue has been based
in Wetherby with IDEXX since 2012 where she is the head of internal medicine.
Renal disease is one of her most commonly encountered problems with an estimated of 30% of geriatric cats (10% of aged dogs) suffering from this condition. In
addition there are early onset conditions and also some breed specific problems (eg
the Wheaten Terrier).
Hence detecting sub-clinical disease with an early diagnosis of failing organs before
Renal failure (defined as loss of 75% of function) sets in, can be a vitally important
part of the overall management of kidney problems. Blood Urea and then Creatinine have long been the frontline tests but can be misleading due to liver problems,
G I bleeding etc. More recently, Urine Protein: Creatinine Ratio has been used but
this is about to be superceded by Symmetric Di-Methyl Arginine (SDMA) measurement. This bio-marker is thought to be a much truer reflection of Glomerular Filtration rate, which would
be the ‘gold standard’ test if practical. SDMA is not affected by haemolysis, lipaemia or recent feeding and
is stable at room temperature. More information is available at www.idexxsdma.com.
Sue also recommended the International Renal Interest Society (IRIS) website for all things Renal!
A report on our most recent CPD meeting - held in December and featuring Kathryn
Pratschke from the newly re-named North East Veterinary Referrals will follow in our next, (April?),
Newsletter.
Kathryn gave an excellent presentation on Respiratory Emergencies - a Surgeon’s perspective, and she
has offered to provide course notes. I will send these out to all those that attended but if anyone else would
like to find out what they missed I can include you on that mailing list.
JANUARY
POSTPONED
The Pet Blood Bank - Jenny Walton
earlier advertised as Wednesday January 20th January - we hope to re-arrange later this year -an update on
the Hows, Whys and Wherefores of Blood Groups for transfusing dogs and cats.
FEBRUARY - Thursday 11th FELINE HYPERTHYROIDISM
Andrew Bodey of the Hyperthyroid Cat Centre near Wetherby will be giving us a presentation on
this enigmatic condition - do you try and persuade cats to swallow tablets twice a day, regularly
monitoring blood samples of course, or go for the more long term option of surgery or Radio-active Iodine treatment. If you know little about the latter then Andrew is your man! A poster on
the talk will follow soon.
TALKING SHEEP - MONDAY 22nd FEBRUARY
Once again NEVA will be joining in with this national series, organised with Sheep
Veterinary Society and sponsored by MSD. The photo shows last year’s speakers
Joe Henry, Cath Spedding, Fiona Lovatt, Rudolph Reichel and Ben Strugnell
The usual format is 15 min each on any ovine topic by vets (or others) from
the region and we are still on the look out for a panel of volunteers to present this year.
As The Ridley Arms (our regular venue) have withdrawn evening buffets from their
menu - and we know how much farm vets like their food - we will be decamping to The Badger, in Ponteland on
Monday 22nd February. Get the date in your diary and if you’ve got something you’d like to share with us let me
know [email protected]
MARCH - Thursday 3rd
NEVA AGM - with BVA President Sean Wensley
As detailed on the Front page - please join us for dinner and up-to-date Veterinary policy discussion!
FOR THE REST OF 2016
We would like to support the International ‘ONE HEALTH’ program that recognises the link
between human and animal disease or welfare issues. Jane has been in discussions with Dr
Richard Mellanby of ‘Mission Rabies’ (and R(D)VC) regarding a meeting on this subject in
April or May - which we hope may be the start of an occassional ‘series’ of joint meetings
with other regional medical professionals on issues affecting man and animals.
Preliminary talks have also been held with Dr Tom Lewis from The Kennel Club so genetic
diseases may also appear on your CPD Menu later this year.
Sunday September 18th is another date for your CPD diary as we have agreed to help publicise BSAVA’s ‘Cats Behaving Badly’ day at Blackwell Grange, Darlington.
Of course if you fancy suggesting any topics or speakers we’d be very pleased to hear
from you.