Few areas in veterinary practice have evolved as rapidly in recent years as in the field of diagnostic imaging. Many practices are making the leap to digital radiographs from film and also boast a capability to use diagnostic ultrasound. Now it is the dawn of the age of cross-sectional multiplanar modalities such as computerised tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In 2005 the Animal Referral Hospital (ARH) was one of the first in Australia to install a CT scanner which has become integrated into the practice to such an extent that it is hard for the ARH specialist clinicians to imagine practising without it. Now, in another first, The Animal Referral Hospital at Homebush in Sydney has just taken delivery of a Philips 1.0 Tesla Intera MRI system being the first high field superconducting MRI scanner in a veterinary practice in New South Wales. The system is in the final stages of assembly and is anticipated to be running by November 2011.While the new MRI will be extensively used by the specialists in surgery, medicine, oncology, behaviour, dentistry, exotics and ophthalmology it will also be run as an external imaging service for all practising veterinarians to access. All scans will be read by specialist veterinary radiologists with both images and reports sent back to referring veterinarians.
The Animal Referral Hospital will be running a number of courses and seminars in upcoming months to illustrate the relevance and uses of the new technology to vets in practice.