One of the exciting parts of my current role is the opportunity to go into veterinary practices across the world to meet farm animal vets, deliver CPD sessions, and to facilitate clinical discussions. Wherever I go, one thing that is evident to me is the passion for animal health and welfare, alongside the desire to do the best for our clients.
In this edition, as usual, we have an excellent range of articles from vets at all stages of their careers. What links them all together is the fact that they combine practical guidance and an evidence-based focus, from which the production-animal practitioner can learn and ensure that they have as much information as possible to benefit their advice and decision making on farm.
I am particularly excited to read the article discussing large animal dermatology and the common cases practitioners may see (p30). For many of us, dermatology is usually discussed in the small animal sense, and this article serves as a useful reminder as to what we can do in farmanimal practice and the common conditions we may see.
Last year, I also was lucky enough to become more involved with quality improvement (QI) within the veterinary sector; receiving an RCVS Knowledge QI Award for a clinical audit into sheep caesarean sections and lambings, which was subsequently written up as a paper and published in Livestock (Charles and Stockton, 2022).
And, in November, I joined the RCVS Knowledge Quality Improvement Advisory Board. Some of the resources available to farm vets are the FarmVetChampions course and associated resources (RCVS Knowledge, 2021; 2023) – I would encourage any vets who haven't already signed up to do so (Allerton and Russell, 2023).
My take home message for the farm animal vet, is the fact that QI and clinical audit can easily be done in the farm animal sector, and we are probably all doing it already. So, let's make sure we share the knowledge and lessons learned to benefit the profession and the welfare of all animals under our care.
As we enter the new year, I am keen to encourage farm animal practitioners at all stages of their career to provide submissions to Livestock. If you've had an interesting case, chances are that other vets nationwide will also find it interesting, and potentially learn something from your case report. If a former colleague, and mentor, hadn't nudged me to submit a case report to this journal back in 2020, I wouldn't have become involved with Livestock!
There is a wealth of support and information available from the Livestock team to help vets present their articles, case reports, or original research in the right way for publication – so do get in touch (email vet@markallengroup.com) and I look forward to reading the excellent articles that follow!