2022 ASAV conference wrap up

_{Image: ASAV president Dr David Lee delivers his opening speech}

The 47^th annual 2022 ASAV conference was held on the 24 – 28 July in Darwin. As the first ASAV conference since 2019, the focus was on the three Cs: Companionship, Collegiality and Community.

Dr David Lee, president of ASAV, spoke about the three Cs in his opening speech, in which he reflected on the difficulty of the past few years. It was, he said, “A time where we faced challenges that we’d never faced in our profession… A time where we were forced to call on all of our reserves of resilience, and compassion, to support the growing pet care needs in the face of limited resources, often at the expense of our own mental stress and fatigue.”

He highlighted the importance of our face-to-face conferences in fostering companionship, collegiality and community, saying that the pandemic “proved to many of us how important conferencing is in our lives, and how much we long to get together and share stories and laughter.”

^{Image: lectures at the ASAV 2022 conference}

Stories and laughter were in abundant supply at the event. Delegates were keen to catch up with colleagues and get some learning done, too! For the first time, four special interest groups were brought together for this event: Australian Small Animal Veterinarians (ASAV), Unusual Pet and Avian Vets, Australian Veterinary Dental Society and the Australian Veterinary Behaviour Interest Group were all on hand to deliver a packed program covering not just dogs and cats, but all manner of unusual animals.

The theme of the conference was Emergency Medicine and Surgery, with Drs David Neck, Gisela Kaplan, Terry King and Williana Basuki delivering entertaining and though provoking Plenary sessions. A comprehensive social program, sponsors exhibition hall, as well as workshops and breakfast sessions rounded out the event.

The program was put together by education committee members from the four special interest groups, Drs Karen Jackson, Bruce Mackay, Stephen Yeomans, Rebecca Nilsen, Deborah Monk and Sally Nixon.

This week was such a success that ASAV are keen to continue building collegiality with other AVA SIGs . They are delighted to announce they will be teaming up with the Australian Reproductive Veterinarians SIG to deliver next year’s theme: ‘Gruel, guts and gonads.’

The 2023 ASAV conference will be held on 7 – 10 August at The Star Gold Coast, with early-bird pricing and exclusive discounts for AVA members. More information will be announced. We hope to see you there!