Another BSAVA Congress

Back in London fresh from BSAVA Congress which was as impressive as ever. The evenings packed and eventful but the days rather hijacked by events elsewhere but more of that later.

Pet Plan awards

Thursday night was my first attendance at Pet Plan awards ceremony ( read into that what you will!). What a night! Pet Plan cannot be praised highly enough for creating this event, thousands of nominations in all the categories, a constant stream of positive messages about people going above and beyond in a profession that asks a lot in the first place. The absolute highlight and a high point of the whole year was presenting PP vet of the year to the incomparable Hector Lowe from the Isle of Lewis... treating companion animals, farm livestock and stranded cetaceans! Finishing routine days in the early hours of the morning and still phoning owners of in-patients before bed. The three finalists were all supported by the most glowing client affidavits and they should all be very proud but when Hector approached the stage utterly speechless there was nary a dry eye in the house.

BVA policy interest

Back to the daylight hours, immediately after my arrival in Birmingham the Sec of State at Defra made his announcement on the future TB control strategy and at the same time released the 59 page independent expert panel report.... so many hours of reading and consideration followed that. At the same time there was a lot of press activity following on from recent interest in our position on bringing an end to non-stun slaughter which also kept me largely away from the lecture theatres. Still, met a lot of old friends, made new ones and it was nice to spend a couple of days with my wife!