SAM WORRAD<\/strong>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of Japanese veterinarians have attended a two day neurosurgical workshop at the University of Queensland (UQ). The event was hosted from July 20-21 by VetPrac, an organisation that provides practical skills training for registered veterinarians in clinical practice. VetPrac director Ilana Mendels coordinated the workshop over six months, liaising with UQ and Philip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[289,80,881,238,878,880,397,106,57,616,877,879],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-australian-college-of-veterinary-scientists","tag-ilana-mendels","tag-international-collaboration","tag-japan","tag-neurosurgery","tag-philip-moses","tag-training","tag-university-of-queensland","tag-uq","tag-veterinarians","tag-vetprac","tag-workshop"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":402,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":402,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"A number of Japanese veterinarians have attended a two day neurosurgical workshop at the University of Queensland (UQ). The event was hosted from July 20-21 by VetPrac, an organisation that provides practical skills training for registered veterinarians in clinical practice. VetPrac director Ilana Mendels coordinated the workshop over six months, liaising with UQ and Philip Moses, president of the Australian..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"289":{"name":"Australian College of Veterinary Scientists","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=australian-college-of-veterinary-scientists"},"80":{"name":"Ilana Mendels","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=ilana-mendels"},"881":{"name":"international collaboration","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=international-collaboration"},"238":{"name":"Japan","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=japan"},"878":{"name":"neurosurgery","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=neurosurgery"},"880":{"name":"Philip Moses","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=philip-moses"},"397":{"name":"training","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=training"},"106":{"name":"University of Queensland","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=university-of-queensland"},"57":{"name":"UQ","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=uq"},"616":{"name":"veterinarians","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=veterinarians"},"877":{"name":"Vetprac","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=vetprac"},"879":{"name":"workshop","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=workshop"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>A number of Japanese veterinarians have attended a two day neurosurgical workshop at the University of Queensland (UQ).\r\n\r\nThe event was hosted from July 20-21 by VetPrac, an organisation that provides practical skills training for registered veterinarians in clinical practice.\r\n\r\nVetPrac director Ilana Mendels coordinated the workshop over six months, liaising with UQ and Philip Moses, president of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists.\r\n\r\nThe workshop covered spinal surgery and including topics such as thoracolumbar disc disease, lumbosacral disease, atlanto-axial stabilization techniques, ventral slot and spinal fractures.\r\n\r\nMendels found the hospital grade surgical facilities of UQ’s Clinical Studies Centre and the veterinary technicians on hand ideal for the workshop.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt’s great to use the facilities and show them off internationally,\u201d she said.\r\nMendels said Japan does not yet have a specialisation body, which means many general practitioners are required to perform highly technical procedures, sometimes without practical experience.\r\n\r\nJapanese veterinarian, Joji Ota, said training opportunities are rare in his country.\r\n\r\n\u201cJapan has a population of 120 million people, there are many pets needing care,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cBeing able to train young vets on the complicated procedures in wet-workshops with specialists such as Dr Philip Moses and Dr Sue Gibbons is a real treat.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe delegation came from across Japan, and was an initiative of Ota, and Mr Kanazawa from the Nichiyo Air Services. Ota was introduced to Mendels through Bruce Smith, Clincial Associate Professor of Small Animal Surgery at UQ.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe group has been to Australia before in smaller numbers to learn from us at the specialist hospitals,\u201d Smith said.\r\n\r\nSmith was suitably impressed by VetPrac to engage them in the running of this year’s workshop.\r\n\r\nThe delegation is returning for a soft tissue workshop in July 2013.\r\n\r\nMendels started VetPrac in 2009 after a number of her colleagues had discussed the challenges of ‘up-skilling’ as a veterinarian.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe goal is to bridge the gap between learning and doing,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nMendels added that there has been a significant improvement in responsible pet ownership and companion animal ethics in the last 15 years.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is more pressure on veterinarians to achieve positive clinical outcomes, and this can effect our confidence if our skills get slack; VetPrac helps to keep skills sharp,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n\u201cVetPrac is also helpful to people who have been perhaps travelling, or taking time out to have kids.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is a good way to reacquaint vets with the right skills and tools, and to solidify existing knowledge. We have a number of areas we work in, such as dentistry, soft tissue and orthopaedic surgery, opthamology, ultrasound and pathology.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor more information about upcoming workshops visit