The other week I was lucky enough to get to the NZVA Conference in Christchurch. Over three days, 14 different streams provided hundreds of attendees with first class and thought provoking content to help keep their interest alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of it was super technical- geeky stuff about data and binomial distributions and long tails and multivariate models. Some of it was super hard to understand- the genetics of antimicrobial resistance and how it may be transferred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of it was inspiring- sessions on leadership that made you sit up and jot down bullet points; or simply reflect on how far away from this ideal you may be. Some of it was dull- but gave us all a chance to catch up on emails and our \u2018to do\u2019 lists. But mostly, it was amazing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Often, you look at the programme of a conference like this and \u2013 to be honest \u2013 it\u2019s a bit hard to get inspired. Either you\u2019ve heard the speakers before and you don\u2019t really want to hear them again. Or, you haven\u2019t heard them before and you\u2019ve no idea if they\u2019re any good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there\u2019s the topics- vets in particular need a conference session on naming their talks. We really struggle to come up with anything more snappy than \u2018update on parasitology in deer\u2019- and even then, we\u2019re not sure if \u2018update\u2019 is too strong a word. Maybe just \u2018deer parasitology\u2019. Although, full credit to the imaginative titles that did crop up- \u2018Bone to be wild: unleashing insights into canine osteosarcoma<\/em>\u2019 quite possibly my favourite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the speakers and the names of the talks hid many highlights aside from the talks themselves. One was the anti-farming protestors, trying their hardest to prove that there really are only two degrees of freedom in Aotearoa with their very own personalised protest, complete with my name on a placard! Apparently, someone had checked on \u2018my backyard\u2019 and found that, yes, it was muddy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another highlight was the awards ceremony at the Gala dinner. Often, these sorts of things can be turgid affairs. Usually, the recipients either can\u2019t be bothered turning up, or they\u2019re so dull you wish they hadn\u2019t. Some of them are so awkward as to be comical. I was at an awards night once \u2013 I\u2019d better not say where or who \u2013 and they presented their free lifetime membership award posthumously<\/em>. The Treasurer must have agonised over that instance of benevolence for quite a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the NZVA awards, it was great to have a number of young veterinarians honoured. They all spoke amazingly well; confidently and with passion, and they had inspiring stories that gave a real sense of the future of the profession being in good hands. Of course, many were female, and I can\u2019t have been the only stale male who felt remarkably pathetic listening to them list a plethora of professional achievements whilst acknowledging that wrangling three kids and playing for the New Zealand Softball team didn\u2019t give much time outside of vetting for running their 15,000ha sheep and beef farm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But, amongst all of the formal highlights which are outlined in the programme, it\u2019s easy to forget that the best bit of any conference is the sense of social and professional connectivity that you get. I\u2019m sure this was highlighted for us all post -Covid, when we were forced to go without for a few years. There\u2019s no doubt that the return to a formal NZVA Conference after that period brought an exaggerated sense of relief and collegiality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But even this year, a few years out from those challenging and strange days, there was the strong sense of the value and purpose of a vet conference. Being amongst like-minded (some may say \u2018similarly strange\u2019) colleagues is always inspiring to a degree. Like finding a strange Facebook group that is devoted to the celebration of one-legged bearded carpenters, or The Irish Apostrophe Preservation Society (yes, it does exist), you are amongst similar weirdos, and it\u2019s strangely comforting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s old friends and old classmates. New friends and new partners, and new families to update on. New jobs and different careers to catch up on. Old stories to retell and laugh about and new bosses and work mates to bitch about. It\u2019s a social tap dance. You have to be polite about old colleagues who\u2019ve gone too grey or too fat or to seed; and cautiously concerned about those who\u2019ve gone too thin or look too weary or too broken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are names to remember and new and old partners to acknowledge. There\u2019s the folk you only meet at the occasional conference but who still feel like best friends. There are those inspiring, steady, effective vets who still love what they do and still do it well. There are the shared frustrations that provide the strange, atomic bonds between us: the after hours, the difficult clients, the bad debtors, the younger vets, the older vets, the new nurse, the practice manager\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The overarching sense of value from any vet conference is not the technical and scientific detail that is written on the packet. But the stuff that\u2019s hard to identify and package- the camaraderie, the sense of belonging, of being part of something that just might have value and purpose, even if you\u2019re not quite sure what bit you may contribute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As vets we\u2019re chronic imposters, and if nothing else, a conference gives us a sense that even if we each individually don\u2019t measure up, as a collective we\u2019re actually not a bad bunch, and what we do might just about be important. I\u2019m not sure what the collective noun for vets is, but a conference of vets sounds about right. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The other week I was lucky enough to get to the NZVA Conference in Christchurch. Over three days, 14 different streams provided hundreds of attendees with first class and thought provoking content to help keep their interest alive. Some of it was super technical- geeky stuff about data and binomial distributions and long tails and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2671,2901,3344,3347,3343,3345,2673,2706,2892,3346],"class_list":["post-3468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animalhealth","tag-continuingeducation","tag-nzvaconference","tag-vetcommunity","tag-vetconference","tag-veterinaryinspiration","tag-veterinarymedicine","tag-veterinaryprofession","tag-vetlife","tag-vetnetworking"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":1,"name":"Uncategorized","slug":"uncategorized","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":12,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":12,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Uncategorized","category_nicename":"uncategorized","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"The other week I was lucky enough to get to the NZVA Conference in Christchurch. Over three days, 14 different streams provided hundreds of attendees with first class and thought provoking content to help keep their interest alive. Some of it was super technical- geeky stuff about data and binomial distributions and long tails and multivariate models. 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