Association of Veterinary Students Congress Weekend.

Association of Veterinary Students Congress Weekend. 02/07/2012

Some of you will have heard about the AVS (Association of Veterinary Students), it is a division of the BVA British Veterinary Association, responsible for keeping our minds fit and keep us learning beyond university. Last weekend was the AVS congress a gathering of vet students from all over the UK, to engage in lectures and seminars together. Sharing our learning, ethics, and welfare approaches to the veterinary industry.

The Lectures kicked of with a talk from Neil Fitzpatrick (aka the bionic vet) whim introduced us to a insight in the world of adventurous orthopaedics. Showing the next generation of vets to a few successes stories of prosthesis. Some wonderful cases of osteosarcoma treatments, and some very sad cases were the surgery didn’t work and in hind site the surgery may have causes more suffering. It gives us a huge responsibility to diagnoses cases with light speed and give the essential treatment asap. I personally see a bright future for prosthesis when they become more widely available and more cost effective, also this would require many more practices to used digital x-ray, and be quicker at accurate diagnosis, but for now I am not sure if there are enough cases that caught early enough to cover the cost if Fitzpatrick £10m referral center. Maybe one medicine approach can be used to gain funding for the center, after all our pets keep us happy and thus healthy.

The rest of the day was an overlap of lectures and seminars, sadly, I missed an anaesthesia lecture, but I felt the seminar on animal slaughter welfare was essential. The area is a hot topic, with politicians unable to act due to fear of religious backlash the RCVS not putting a stamen out due to political pressure, but the rest of the veterinary industry and very senior government advisers’ all calling for its ban. Due to the religions involved not being of UK historical influence, the UK has been treading on egg shells not to upset the British diversity balance. Looking at the evidence I thing the government is going to have to take a stand against ritual slaughter soon, before it becomes the laughing stock of the welfare movement across the world. For us to have some of the highest welfare standards of the world, yet fall so short at slaughter because of ancient out dated teachings.

The most recent evidence showed through brain activity of bovine slaughter without stun, under anaesthesia using Halothane (dose not causes unconsciousness, only sleep effect, no pain relief) showed the cows with increased brain activity in the pain centres when slaughtered in the ritual ways. However this activity dose not occur with PRIOR stunning. Current methods of slaughter are as follows, Kosha ritual – No stun allowed, sharp long knife taking one cut across the throat, blade cleaned each time. Halal - two types one with no stun, no blade regulations, and no regulations to one cut. Option two cut throat with an unrestricted blade then stun after, (this method dose reduce the length of time pain is suffered, but is not a solution). The normal method uses either a bolt gun or an electric stud prior to slaughter to ensure the animal is unconscious and unaware of the pain. New Zealand have developed a very good way of controlling Halal by ensure all animals are given a reversible stun, in essence this stun is recoverable if the animal is not slaughtered in the period while the animal is unconscious and unaware of pain. So basically the same as UK stunning. The outcome of the seminar was that we need to outlaw ritual slaughter without stunning.

The day ended with a lecture on industry and the roles vets can take to ensure both human and animal medicine progresses, and a wonderful lecture given by Davies referral center on Epilepsy, treatment, diagnosis and aftercare. The best advice I can give from this keeping with in my limitations as a student is, try a hypoallergenic diet in epileptic pets, (Arden Grange –ocean and rice diet, Hills ZD, Neutro, or the raw diets)

The day ended with the AVC Congress ball that brought the new congress council to their positions, after voted by the student bodies of all the universities and the annual general meeting. I can assure you he although the industry is being squeezed by corporate groups, there are many healthy young vets waiting to change the industry for the better.

Big Thank you the sponsors of the weekend - Pfizer Animal Health,

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Adam Sheridan

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