2018 FECAVA Laboklin Travel Scholarship winners announced

Congrats to Toni, Joana, Shona and Ruby, winners of the 2018 FECAVA Travel scholarship! Toni Llaneras and Joana Bestard from the Arago Hospital Veterinari in Palma de Majorca will go on exchange with Shona Macintosh and Ruby Shorrock, from the Pets’n’Vets Family Hospital in Glasgow, UK.

How did the two practices meet? The applicants explain: ‘The joint application is due to conversations between the lead clinical directors of AHV and PnVF, Guillem Riera Palou and Ross Allan. Through a chance meeting while both embarking on the 3-year BSAVA Postgraduate Certificate in Surgery in 2012, Guillem and Ross started to discuss the similarities of life as a vet in Palma, Majorca and Glasgow, Scotland.’

The plans for the exchange are quite ambitious, and include ‘the identification of potential synergies’ in the fields of advanced diagnostic imaging, cardiology, surgery and in-patient management, the exchange of ideas on how the ‘normal day’ runs in each hospital, ‘gaining an understanding of the support systems and structures for work-life balance and personal as well as professional development’ and ‘obtaining local knowledge of specific such as Leishmania’.

However, both the ‘home’ and ‘exchange’ vets will also be encouraged to interact socially and learn about the different cultures and backgrounds of life as a vet in Scotland and Majorca, ‘including an understanding of Ceilidhs, Tartan, Rioja and Salsa’!

Objective of the FECAVA Laboklin Travel Scholarship is to ‘support the appreciation of different cultures by enabling groups of practicing small animal veterinary surgeons, from different parts of Europe, to visit each other for a few days and observe each other’s practice experience’. The FECAVA Travel Scholarship consists of a €2,000 support towards the exchange visits and is made possible through the generous support of Laboklin.

 

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