2011 ACVA Annual Meeting

Letter of Thanks from the President

I'd like to thank everyone who attended and all those who helped organize the 36th Anniversary Meeting of the ACVA, held in Nashville in conjunction with IVECCS, this past week. If you haven't filled out your online evaluation, please do so - you will need your IVECCS attendee badge number (www.2011.iveccs.org). If you can't locate your registration number, please email the registration office (link provided on the IVECCS Evaluation website).

Meeting highlights included:

Ten new diplomates admitted by examination to the College:

• Jordyn Boesch
• Alex Bukoski
• Amandeep Chohan
• Jon Congdon
• Kristen Messenger
• Yukari Miyake
• Juan Pavez
• Carrie Schroeder
• Paulo Steagall
• Ashley Wiese

Sixty two diplomates registered for the meeting, along with 9 exam candidates and 10 residents, for a total of 81. Sixty-six diplomates attended the business meeting, plus 2 DECVAAs (Luiz Campoy and Sabine Kaestner).

A Special Thanks to the Education Committee - Khursheed Mama (Chair), Ann Weil, Lori Bidwell, Tammy Grubb - for putting together the Scientific Program and organizing the IVECCS labs and lectures. The Scientific program included 2 full days worth of abstract presentations, 1 full day of specialty lectures on the IVECCS theme of gastrointestinal concerns related to anesthesia and pain management, several additional anesthesia/pain management lectures, as well as labs on local blocks and monitoring during anesthesia.

More Special Thanks to Daniel Pang and Craig Mosely for organizing and reviewing the Abstracts. 52 abstracts were submitted, 44 were accepted, with 10 from residents. Thirteen diplomates reviewed abstracts with a median (range) of 9 (2-12) abstracts/reviewer. A new online abstract submission system was used this year.

Resident presentation awards, sponsored by Smiths Medical/SurgiVet, went to:

1st place: Ashley Wiese (UCD) "Cardiovascular effects of dopamine and phenylepherine administration during isoflurane-induced hypotension in cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy"

Honorable Mention: Jon Congdon (CSU) "Effect of psoas compartment femoral nerve block and parasacral sciatic nerve block in dogs presenting for pelvic limb amputation"

Sabrina Reilly (UT) "Fentanyl decreases sevoflurane minimum alveolar concentration preventing motor movement (MACNM) in dogs without evidence of acute tolerance"

The judges were Sophie Cuvelliez, Jan Seahorn and Lois Wetmore.

Session moderators were Stephanie Berry, Juliana Figueiredo, Jennifer Hess, Sebastien Bauquier for the Thurs abstract session and Lois Wetmore and Peter Pascoe on Friday.

Dr. Jacob Johnson shared his "Experiences of a Military Veterinarian in Afghanistan" to an overflow crowd on Fri afternoon. In addition, Colin Dunlop described his experiences with providing small animal practice anesthesia consulting in China and Southeast Asia Wed evening.

An exciting first for our College - our Foundation Committee awarded 2 $500 resident travel grants (Drs. Lindsey Mathews of UMN and Dr. Ashley Wiese of UC (was Davis, now San Diego) — both presented abstracts. Please keep the Foundation in mind if you are looking to make a charitable donation this year, as we need to continue building principle before we can begin to support scientific awards.

We also had great attendance at the ACVA mixer Wed pm, and again at the Sat am ACVA-AVTA breakfast, both sponsored by Abbott.

Again, thanks to all who attended and worked behind the scenes to ensure its success!

Bob Meyer
President (outgoing), ACVA