The next stop on my itinerary was a return to Slovenia and to be more precise to the beautiful capital of Ljubljana.
EERVC, the Eastern European Regional Veterinary Conference is the brain child of my Serbian colleague Denis Novak. After having enjoyed part of his training in England and now running the most renowned veterinary clinic in Belgrade, Denis pretty much single handedly redefined continuing education especially for young veterinarians in large parts of Eastern Europe.
Traditionally post graduate education had been a remit of the universities, but that limited the access to new trends in small animal medicine as these institutions often remain very focused on farming animals.
EERVC took a very different approach – starting as a cooperation between the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) and leading veterinarians especially from the Balkan countries, the conference is delivery cutting edge knowledge and speakers, but this at a fraction of the cost of similar events in Northern Europe, because of the much cheaper venues and general cost of living.
For years, at least until COVID, regardless if it took place in Bukarest, in Zagreb or in Thessaloniki (see my blog post in 2019) , EERVC had been a solid entry in my diary.
Even more so this time, as I had the honor of chairing the neurology presentations of Elsa Beltran, one of Europe’s best veterinary lecturers and a magnet for veterinarians and for veterinary students where ever she goes.
This has to no small degree to do with the fact that Elsa is able to make a very complex area of medicine look so simple and logical. She is achieving this with interactive illustrations which are taking her hours to put together and which are then devoured by her listeners within seconds (and unfortunately due to the sheer amount of information to a large degree again forgotten….). Still – what a pleasure enjoying CPD delivered like this…
The conference was – after 2 years of COVID restrictions – also the first truly international event for me and for most of us one of the first opportunity to meet again with a lot of colleagues from other countries and to enjoy together the – by now obligatory – Saturday evening party with Perpetuum Mobile from Belgrade.
Next year EERVC will be in Greece again – my place is already reserved.
The Blue Vet Diary 