Critical Care for the Isle of Man

27 July 2016

Veterinary professionals on the Isle of Man got a lifesaving boost to their emergency medicine training recently, when the first ever BSAVA regional CPD event took place in Douglas.

The BSAVA North West region organized a weekend of island CPD at the end of May. “The event has been a long time in planning, and given that all the practices do their own out of hours cover, emergency and critical care was an obvious choice”, explained Andrew Iveson, BSAVA North West Chairman and course organizer.

Sophie Adamantos from the University of Bristol presented the main talk, supported by Liz Leece and Matt Gurney from North West surgeons. The course was run as a series of 3 modules, allowing a total of 16 delegates to attend, the majority having come from the local practices on the island, with representatives from Milan, Strand and Arg Beiyn Veterinary Practices.

There were lectures on fluid therapy, head trauma, GDV and blocked cat management, blood gas and acid base balance, analgesia, blood transfusion and there was also a very well received practical session giving delegates the chance to practice techniques such as oesophagostomy tube placement, CPR, chest drain placement and seldinger technique.

Liz Leece shows delegates the seldinger technique	Matt Gurney supervises CPR	Sophie demonstrating oesophagostomy tube placement

“The Isle of Man has a very relaxed way of life and it was nice to have time to make a quick visit to Laxey to see the world’s largest working waterwheel and to make the mountain railway up to the island’s highest point Snaefell while over there” added Andrew Iveson. “The lecture room had great views over Douglas Bay and is certainly the only CPD I have ever attended where we had the clip clop of horse drawn trams along the seafront every 30 minutes, which have been running since 1876.”

BSAVA will continue to work with the vets and RVNs on the island and run more courses in the future via its regional network.