SIG in the Spotlight: Australian Reproduction Veterinarians Group

 

Learn all about the Australian Reproduction Veterinarians (ARV) from President Dr John Cavalieri who details how the Group supports young vets, contributes to policy development and explains how veterinary reproduction is evolving.

Can you provide an overview of the ARV and its main objectives within the veterinary profession?

We help provide advice on issues related to veterinary reproduction, to deepen knowledge, broaden skill bases, promote education and training, and give opinions on anything from ethics to optimum processes and practices associated with various reproductive challenges and policies.

 

What are the benefits of joining the ARV?

You can get access to the email list, so if you do have a question, there's usually someone who can give you a response, provide advice and give you support and confidence in your decisions and actions.  

We have webinars and training opportunities and can cater for a broad range of interests, whether small animals, large animals, or small ruminants. We try to create opportunity for social events as well, so our members can chat with other people about what's new, what's changing and form friendships. It’s great when you have a shared interest.

^{TCI Workshop 2024}

 

How does the ARV support veterinarians in their day-to-day practices?

We are a service where veterinary practices can ask questions and seek advice. If there’s a particular topic that a few people are seeking questions to or if a member suggests a certain topic, then there’s opportunities to host webinars.

A lot of vets for example, don’t feel very confident about vaginal cytology in dogs and breeding dogs. If they’re a member of the ARV, they can seek advice from us, learn, maybe attend a webinar if it’s available. That can give them the confidence to say, “I can do this” and value add to the daily services they provide.

You can easily incorporate that into practice, monitoring hormones and applying that to working out the timing of ovulation. All of that is relatively routine most of the time, so hopefully it can give you the confidence and the experience when facing these cases in practice. If we can encourage people to do that and help them to feel competent and help provide any core training they need, then I feel that their membership is enhancing their professional practice.

I see the ARV playing a role in helping lead to more job satisfaction, but also improving  and value adding to their service.

 

The ARV established performance standards and guidelines for vets – can you tell me about that?

There are policies that we contribute to, the last one being the Surgical Artificial Insemination (AI) in Dogs Policy, there were a number of veterinarians who contributed to that in and outside the ARV. It certainly stimulated thought within the industry and about whether surgical AI was a routine procedure anymore, and whether we should perhaps utilise Transcervical Insemination (TCI). It’s brought that issue to the surface, and it's helped us to think, maybe TCI is now a good option and a better welfare outcome for dogs.

We've been promoting that policy and supporting it with training. The ARV has run two TCI workshops in the last 2 years and will run another one this year, on 9 August, at James Cook University in Townsville.

We've been assisting with revising guidelines for the use of female cattle in training programs for trans-rectal pregnancy testing and artificial insemination, and we'll probably start working on a follicular aspiration one in the coming year.  We have contributed to the Electro Ejaculation policy, that has been ratified now.

^{TCI Workshop 2024}

 

What career paths are available to veterinarians with a special interest in reproduction?

The ARV is a really good opportunity for young vets, to start to meet other people who have careers in that area and to get access to some of the training and online resources that we provide.

Some members provide guidance and mentorship for those who are undertaking membership or specialist level examinations.

If students have a particular interest and they want to do a residency or work towards specialisation, there are people in this group who have done that, and can guide, direct and help them.

If you’re a member of the ARV and you want to become a specialist or look for a reproductive position, your membership helps the employer to see that you have an interest, and you're providing evidence of that interest through membership. Some of those potential employment opportunities include residencies and internships in reproduction, positions that include participating in embryo transfer, embryology, artificial insemination across species. Whether that's sheep, cattle, pigs, horses – it's relevant to a reproductive veterinarian. Beyond that, it's not just techniques, there's reproductive related research, teaching and monitoring and managing reproductive records.

There's a whole diversity of things in terms of career paths that people with interest in reproduction can undertake.

 

How do you see the field of veterinary reproduction evolving in the next few years, and what role will the ARV play in shaping that future?

Reproductive sciences have come a long way, but where are we going to go and what is going to make the real difference for the practitioner in the future? We're certainly getting better at the existing techniques, the pregnancy rates are getting better with some techniques, follicular aspiration and IVF are becoming more common in cattle and horses,  so I think I can see practitioners growing into that space.

Techniques like genetic engineering and modification using techniques such as CRISPR, may not be undertaken directly by many veterinarians but vets will be involved in helping to pass on and generate those genetically modified animals, if the public will allow us to do that. So, yeah, whenever the application and transfer of animals with genetic profiles that bring advantages to animal production and health, we'll be involved in helping to develop those and propagate, those animals. Society will need to decide the limits of genetic modification that can be applied but veterinarians will have a role in applying that technology to generate the animals and genetic traits that society feel are beneficial.

 

Tell us a little about you and how you became involved in the ARV!

I have been a member of the AVA since about 1984. If you’re a University of Melbourne graduate from around that time, you would remember Dr Jack Arundel. You may also remember that you couldn't do Jack Arundel’s parasitology class without getting drummed into you the value of the AVA. I think I joined when he was a past president of the AVA. I'd be surprised if there were too many Melbourne graduates who got through Jack Arundel’s parasitology without also becoming an AVA member.

Graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1986, I began my career as a rural veterinarian working mainly with beef and dairy cattle. I completed a PhD on oestrous synchronisation in Bos indicus cattle at James Cook University in 1996, followed by a residency in animal reproduction (theriogenology) at North Carolina State University, and became American Board Certified in 1998. Returning to Australia, I worked as a research fellow at the University of Melbourne (1999–2001), developing controlled breeding programmes for dairy herds. I then became a registered veterinary reproduction specialist, worked as a company director in bovine reproduction consultancy, and in 2005 joined James Cook University as a senior lecturer. Currently, I am the Academic Head for the Discipline of Veterinary Sciences. My research has focused on manipulating the oestrous cycle, nutritional impacts on reproduction, sterilisation alternatives for Bos indicus cattle, and veterinary education. I serve on the Editorial Board for Animal Reproduction Science and have over 70 peer-reviewed publications.