Vetstream went to the BEVA Congress this year. The scientific programme was excellent and we made a point of stopping by as many exhibitors’ stands as possible, there were certainly some interesting ones this year! The BEVA Congress ran from 8th-10th September.

We arrived early to set up our stand:

The exhibits offered all the latest developments in the equine industry for vets to peruse. Here are some of the exhibits I managed to photograph:

As for the exhibition floor:

 I had the pleasure of meeting some of the team at Horse Power Vets: 10 vets on motorbikes who travelled across the UK delivering equine CPD for charity. It sounds unbelievable — and it was, they even had a motorbike at their stand:

I spoke to the wonderful Dr. Jessica Kidd and Dr. Derek Knottenbelt about the adventurous project which raised £60 000 for charity. The team have plans to tour abroad in 2012 and hope to raise over £100 000 delivering quality equine CPD… in motorbike leathers. I’ll be following up on Horse Power CPD in the future!

I managed to see the lecture on emerging diseases hosted by Andy Durham with Ann Cullinane, Ulrich Wernery, Paul Phipps and James Wood.

Of particular interest to me was the talk on Hendra and similar diseases such as Nipah by James Wood, which was genuinely fascinating in the scale and risk of commercial exposure. There will be more emerging diseases and, in part, James Wood blamed a significant degree on improper procedure in clinics: vets who don’t take appropriate measures to stop the spread of new diseases are inadvertently helping perpetuate them.

The dermatology panel was great fun, it was an interactive session in which the audience was asked to help in diagnosis. The panel was chaired by Marianne Sloet with speakers Derek Knottenbelt, Janet Littlewood and Rob Pilsworth. Derek claimed dermatology by nature is an open discipline and vets try to do too much rather than focusing on individual symptoms. Dermatology had to be pragmatic and evidence-based.

The panel opened up a number of interesting points and discussions. Dermatology examinations had to be realistic: if an owner has just bought a new horse are they going to want extensive skin biopsy? How many owners check for sarcoids before they buy them, and to what extent as the vet are you able to advise on an owner’s purchase?

Unfortunately we didn’t go to any of the after-parties (though happy hour for exhibitors was an… interesting experience – two bottles of wine, glasses and a whole mob of thirsty vets!), but I did try to take in the Liverpool nightlife. It didn’t really work — but here are some pictures:

All in all the congress was a rewarding, fun, interesting experience and we’d love to go again next year. Hope everyone had an equally positive experience — if you took any pictures or have anything to share please let us know!

Special thanks to Wendy Nevins from The Webinar Vet for helping us with the Vetstream stand.