Recently Liesbeth traveled to Swindon to attend a two-day feline medicine course as part of her on-going postgraduate certificate in feline medicine. This month two topics were covered, feline soft tissue surgery and feline ophthalmology.
The first day was taught by a RCVS specialist in small animal surgery, Dr Guillaume Chanoit who covered the fundamentals of surgery and some of the more advanced procedures in soft tissue surgery. The afternoon concentrated on surgical management of more complex wounds, which we often see in cats that have suffered road traffic accidents. These wounds can be challenging to deal with and often lengthy treatments are required in order to achieve closure of large wounds.
The second day covered feline ophthalmology. Ophthalmology doesn’t just cover diseases exclusively involving the eyes but often gives us clues to other issues going on with the cat such as infectious diseases or blood pressure problems. The lecturer was Kerry Smith who is a European Veterinary Specialist in ophthalmology. We spent the day covering more detailed examination of the inner portions of the eye and reviewing lots of photographs of the back of the eye, the retina. We then covered surgery of the eye, which is often challenging due to the size of cats eyes!