EQUINE | Report
Report: British Equine
Veterinary Associasion
Dr Terry Casey
I recently had the privilege of attending the British
Equine Veterinary Association congress as SAEVA’s rep-
resentative. Firstly “Thank you “ to Johan Oostyhuyse
and V-Tech for making this possible every year. It has
almost become a standing tradition for V-Tech to spon-
sor this. BEVA as it is colloquially known is probably
one of the world’s premier equine congresses and is
held every year in the third week of September. SAEVA
many years ago identified this as one of the congresses
to attend to portray SAEVA’s image to the world. It is
also an important staging area to identify future speak-
ers at our congress in February of each year. other of South Africa’s good friends Prof Derek Knot-
tenbelt. It was titled “Using the past to make the future
better”. There were also numerous practical session,
given this year by the likes of Roger Smith and Jean-
marie Denoix, that gave good take-home messages.
This was a special occasion as an old friend of SAEVA’s,
Jon Pycock, was elected as chairman of the organisa-
tion. We will all remember Jon from his numerous vis-
its to South Africa. His antics on the tennis court during
the Wilderness congress are well remembered by all,I
am sure! He is also a special friend of the late Dave
Mullins so it was a real pleasure to attend his inaugura-
tion at the awe inspiring St George’s Hall in Liverpool. There is obviously a very strong European contingent.
The Chairman’s all raise topics that they feel are affect-
ing the equine veterinary profession in their country.
It is fascinating to see how many of the individual is-
sues have a commonality between all the countries.
Issues that were discussed at length included the wel-
fare of horses, disposal of bodies, horse abattoirs, the
relationship between equine veterinarians and dental
technician, the gender dynamics of the equine veteri-
narian profession, students’ varsity fees, mentorship,
the high suicide rate amongst veterinarians, etc., etc.
BEVA is usually held from the Thursday to the Saturday
in the week and this time it was no different. There
are always multiple sessions to attend so the hardest
choice is always which lecture is going to be missed.
Interesting talks was the plenary session given by an-
24
One of the reasons for attending BEVA is because ev-
ery year they hold an international presidents meeting.
This has gone from strength to strength over the years.
When I first attended, 10-odd years ago, there was 6 or
so presidents attending. This year there were 19 inter-
national presidents attending the meeting.
Thanks once again to V-Tech for making this all pos-
sible
• Equine Health Update •