19 Jan 2022
Sarah Keir BVMS, PGCertSAM, MRCVS, gives a overview of the society’s autumn 2021 meeting, which was held virtually on 3 November.
Sarah Page-Jones
Job Title
Image © Tyler Olson / Adobe Stock
We may feel we are getting tired of virtual meetings, but they remain a great way for people spread geographically distantly to come together to enjoy some high-quality, great-value CPD that is flexible around their needs.
The Small Animal Medicine Society (SAMSoc) autumn meeting held on 3 November was a great example of this, with the greatest ever turnout for the society.
This was also the launch year of SAMSoc nurses who enjoyed their own stream of presentations, as well as joint ones with the vets.
Generous meeting sponsors Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Zoetis and BOVA enabled a great-value meeting appreciated by all.
The meeting kicked off with a presentations on the emerging threat of Brucella canis by Emi Barker and Rebecca Brown, giving a dual insight into the national picture of B canis and the point of view of a first opinion vet faced with a possible case. This led to much discussion in the chat on raising awareness in colleagues and clients with adopted dogs.
SAMSoc encourages and enables research – especially in first-opinion practice – and has several exciting projects currently recruiting project collaborators and data collectors. Through the day attendees heard about the current projects under way – particularly the Stop On Sunday (SOS) Urinary Tract Infection Trial investigating the optimal duration of antibiotic treatment for urinary tract infection in female dogs.
To find out how to get involved with SAMSoc in-practice research, visit https://bit.ly/3oYayRF
After the morning break, the vet and nurse streams were treated to a fabulous presentation on imposter syndrome and overcoming perfectionism by Katie Ford, followed by the very popular poster presentations, with 10 presentations this year covering a very wide variety of medicine topics. Attendees enjoyed the brief and energetic presentations, and there are always some unusual and surprising posters.
A highlight of the day was update on the feline pancytopenia outbreak from this year by researchers Barbara Glanemann and Karen Humm of the RVC. Though they may not be able to conclusively prove the causation, their timely investigation and intervention surely saved many cats’ lives.
They also remarked that we should be on the watch for similar outbreaks of unusual presentations in the future as global climate changes how food is sourced.
This was followed by great presentations on how to recognise and approach chronic pain in medicine cases by Matt Gurney, and an update on myasthenia gravis classification and treatment by Mark Lowrie.
The meeting concluded with Ed Breitschwerdt joining us from across the pond in North Carolina to update us on the emerging infectious diseases of bartonellosis.
The SAMSoc nurses’ programme, put together by Vicky Maund, gave the inaugural nurse stream a great launch, with presentations covering the nutritional management of gastrointestinal disease, managing nausea, lily toxicity and a medley of interesting VN case experiences.
The nurse stream was well received and we look forward to this part of SAMSoc growing.
SAMSoc is a supportive community of students, interns, residents, nurses, primary care practitioners and specialists with an uniting interest in small animal medicine.
Membership is open to all veterinary students, veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses. The next SAMSoc meeting will be the pre-BSAVA Congress spring meeting in Manchester and hybrid with virtual, on Wednesday 23 March 2022. We look forward to seeing you there.
