WSAVA Activities and Committee Reports
WSAVA Continuing Education Committee Report – India, Summer 2005
The fourth WSAVA CE meeting in India was held in Chennai (Madras) and the speaker was Dr. Roger Clarke, who gave a series of lectures on soft-tissue and orthopaedic surgery to over 200 delegates at the Park Sheraton Hotel. The delegates came from several states of India and the meeting was jointly hosted by the Pet Practitioners Association of Mumbai (PPAM), a member association of the WSAVA, and the Small Animal Practitioners Association of Chennai (SAPAC). This is the first time a WSAVA CE meeting has been held on the east coast of India and was part of an initiative to try to increase the dissemination of WSAVA CE in the Indian sub-continent.
This WSAVA meeting was held in close association with the annual meeting of SAPAC and a 2-day training workshop held by the Madras Veterinary College, founded 1903 and the second oldest veterinary school in India. The Madras Veterinary School is well equipped to provide training workshops in ophthalmology, intensive care, and diagnostic procedures, such as endoscopy, and many of the staff later attended the WSAVA meeting.
Drs. L. K. Sharma and Umesh Kakare of PPAM organized the WSAVA meeting in conjunction with the SAPAC and Dr. Sharma went to great efforts to make sure the meeting ran very smoothly.
While in Chennai, Dr. Clarke had the great pleasure to visit the Blue Cross of India premises at 72 Valachery Road, Guindy, Chennai 600 032, and saw the good work they were doing to help the stray animal population of Chennai. The dogs were sterilized, ear marked, and vaccinated against Rabies and then returned to their place of origin. The incidence of Rabies bites to humans is markedly reduced as a result of such programs. The home also cares for birds, reptiles, cows, donkeys, and abandoned laboratory rats and mice.
Focus on WSAVA Standardization Projects and Dr. Claudio Brovida Standards Projects Coordinator – a Brief History
During the WSAVA Assembly Meeting in Mexico City, Mexico on May 10, 2005, Dr. Claudio Brovida was instilled as WSAVA Standards Projects Coordinator, a natural fit as Dr. Brovida has been active both in various aspects of companion animal internal medicine and the two standards projects (hepatic and gastrointestinal pathology and disease classification) that WSAVA has coordinated to date. Dr. Bovida is a graduate of the University of Turin Veterinary School and has since furthered his interest in veterinary internal medicine, particularly nephrology/urology and respiratory medicine, through various international training endeavors including time spent at the Universities of Minnesota, Davis, Utrecht, and Bristol as well as the Animal Medical Center in New York City. He has lectured extensively at regional, national, and international veterinary congresses with close to 70 scientific publications to his credit. His international affiliation within the academic veterinary community together with his active role in various veterinary medical associations, including being past president of the Italian Small Animal Veterinary Association (AIVPA), the European Society of Veterinary Nephrology (ESVNU), and the WSAVA, made him the perfect candidate to facilitate the WSAVA international standardization projects.
During Dr. Brovida’s term as WSAVA president-elect under then president Dr. Hans Klaus Dreier with vice president Dr. Gabriel Varga, a strategic planning session looking at the long-term goals of the WSAVA was held. At that time (and continuing today), the WSAVA CE initiatives were enjoying tremendous success in more broadly disseminating companion animal CE, particularly in poorly serviced regions such as Eastern Europe, South Central America, and South Eastern Asia. Through these efforts, an effective cooperative relationship had been established between the WSAVA and the academic veterinary community; however, aside from CE, there were no other formal efforts or projects to strengthen this global working relationship and this became a WSAVA goal for future development. Dr. Dreier, as part of his presidential address at the WSAVA World Congress in Amsterdam 2000, announced this plan to establish projects that would further strengthen bonds between the academic and international companion animal veterinary medical association communities. Later that same year, a meeting was held between Dr. Jan Rothuizen of Utrecht and Dr. Brovida, wherein Dr. Rothuizen enthusiastically supported this WSAVA goal and suggested the topic of the first WSAVA Standardization Project – hepatology. This resulted in the creation of the WSAVA Liver Standardization Research Group (with Dr. Rothuizen as group coordinator), designed to derive consensus on the classification of hepatic diseases via histopathology. This project was generously sponsored by Hill’s Pet Nutrition and will culminate in the publication of their findings in a textbook format via Elsevier with an anticipated availability date of late 2005/early 2006. The success of the liver standardization group prompted the creation of the Gastrointestinal Standardization Group which began its activities at the ACVIM Forum in Minneapolis in 2004. Its goal is similar to the Liver Standardization Group and that is to provide consensus on the histopathological definition and classification of diseases involving the gastrointestinal tract, again with the generous funding support of Hill’s Pet Nutrition. Updates on both of the Liver and GI Standardization Groups can be found on the WSAVA website. Subsequently, discussions began at the WSAVA World Congress in Rhodes 2003 about the establishment of a third standardization group to focus on the histopathology of renal disease, principally glomerular diseases. With the generous support of Novartis, a preliminary meeting involving 12 members of the academic community and WSAVA was held in Utrecht in January 2005 with further discussions ongoing. Hopefully the near future will see the formalization of this project and the announcement of both the formation of a project group and sponsoring company.
These standardization projects have become a key focal point of WSAVA efforts. Designed to develop consensus in key areas of emerging scientific knowledge, they will be of enormous benefit to both the academic and general practitioner veterinary communities.
WSAVA Member Association Updates
Pet Practitioners Association of Mumbai (PPAM)
Prior to the WSAVA CE meeting reported on above, there was an historic meeting between Indian Veterinary Association representatives from Mumbai, Chennai, Goa, and Bangalore, who unanimously agreed to the formation of a National Federation of Indian of Small Animal Veterinary Associations. The federation is to be known by the acronym, FISAVA. Dr. Roger Clarke attended as WSAVA observer. This project has been under consideration for almost 2 years and is now a reality. A steering committee Chaired by Dr. Jay Prakash, Chennai (SAPAC), with Dr. Umesh Kakare, Mumbai (PPAM) as Secretary and Dr. Santosh Desai (SAVAG) as managing committee member was formed to draft a constitution and it was proposed that all registered small animal veterinary associations in India would be invited to join the Federation. The FISAVA may eventually become the organization to be affiliated with WSAVA, however this still has to be decided.
News From Around the World
Spanish Small Animal Veterinary Association (AVEPA)
AVEPA (Associacion de Veterinarios Espanoles Especialistas en Pequenos Animales) has announced the establishment of a Master’s Degree in Management and Administration of Veterinary Centers in collaboration with the IVEE (Spanish Institute of Veterinary Economic Studies) and UAB (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona). The course is equivalent to a full-fledged MBA program, covering all of the essential areas of any modern business including strategy and operations, human resource management, accounting/finance, and marketing. The program, given in Spanish, will consist of 324 lecture hours spread over 2 years and can be taken in either Barcelona or Madrid, Spain. Applicants with degrees in business administration or economics wishing to pursue a career in the field of managing veterinary businesses will be considered, although preference will be given to veterinarians who own or manage clinics, which is the intended audience of this program.
For further information, visit the ACEPA website at www.avepa.org