Vet Sessions

Welcome back listeners! If you have ever considered owning a veterinary practice or getting involved in the business side of the veterinary industry, this is the episode for you. This week, Dr. Omar Khan had the pleasure of sitting down with veterinarian and OVC professor Dr. John Tait. Not only has Dr. Tait has been teaching professional career development and financial planning to veterinary stu...

This week we decided to switch gears and dive into an uncomfortable, yet critically important topic: mental health and euthanasia. To do so, Dr. Shannon Gowland sat down with registered veterinary technician and colleague, Emily Horton. Emily has been an incredible advocator for mental health in this profession for years. She, like so many others, struggled for far too long before opening up, and...

Spring is in the air, which means all across Canada, classes of student veterinarians are preparing to enter the profession very shortly. To celebrate this, Dr. Shannon Gowland sat down with OVC 2020 graduate, Dr. Werdah Iqbal to find out what new graduates can expect in the first few years of practice. In this episode, Dr. Iqbal opens up about the struggles she faced and overcame, with everything...

The abundance and distribution of tick populations in Ontario, as well as the whole of Canada, has changed dramatically over the last decade. With unusually warm winters and other shifts in our climate, some pet owners are finding ticks on their animals in months outside the typical tick season. This is a concern, as ticks carry many infectious and zoonotic pathogens, one of which is Lyme disease....

Welcome back to Vet Sessions! For this week's episode we wanted to take a break from clinically-focused content to look at the government industry of veterinary medicine. To speak to this, Dr. Omar Khan was fortunate enough to sit down with veterinarian, Canada's chief veterinary officer, and executive director of the Animal Health Directorate for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Dr. Mary Jane...

Luckily, most patients undergoing general anesthesia in small animal practice are healthy and the procedures are elective. However, given the vasodilatory effects of our anesthetic agents, hypotension is a common sequelae that does need to be addressed. With a multitude of drugs and techniques at our disposal, it can be hard to figure out where to even begin, let alone how to troubleshoot when thi...

Happy Family Day and welcome back to Vet Sessions! Today's episode is all about those infamous cranial cruciate injuries in our canine patients. Dr. Tiffany Durzi sat down with veterinarian, OVC professor, and specialist orthopedic surgeon Dr. Melissa MacIver to find out what the current recommendations are for diagnosis and treatment of this condition. We also discussed rehabilitation, what do in...

Welcome back to vet sessions! This week Dr. Tiffany Durzi had the pleasure of sitting down with veterinary internal medicine specialist and the chief of infection control at OVC, Dr. Scott Weese. In this episode we cover what small animal practitioners need to know about this viral disease, including when and who to vaccinate, when and who to test, and the signs of a potential outbreak to look out...

Heart murmurs: we all love to pick them out, but don't necessarily love figuring out what to do next. For many veterinarians, navigating how to share your findings with the client, deciding to treat or not treat asymptomatic patients, and figuring out when to refer to a cardiology specialist can be difficult, and sometimes even controversial. To clear the air, Dr. Shannon Gowland sat down with vet...

Happy New Year and welcome back to the first episode of season two here at Vet Sessions. We have so much exciting and informative content to bring to you in 2023, we can't wait! To kick things off, Dr. Shannon Gowland sat down with veterinarian and oncology specialist Dr. Chris Pinard to talk about all things lymphoma. In this episode we get straight to the important details of clinical signs, dia...

Opioids, as a part of a well-balanced anesthetic or analgesic protocol, are a staple in veterinary clinics worldwide. However, either because of current or future disruptions in supply, negative side effects in our patients, or the risk of abuse, some have started to question the use of opioids in veterinary medicine and discuss 'opioid-free anesthesia/analgesia' or OFA protocols. To shed light on...

Welcome back! Last time Dr. Shannon Gowland sat down with veterinary dental specialist Dr. Amy Thomson to talk about her journey in small animal dentistry and her approach to feline tooth resorption. In this episode we go over extraction methods and tips for closing those 'wet-tissue-paper' gingival flaps that are every practitioner's worst nightmare, plus more! We hope you enjoy part two of this...

On this week's episode of Vet Sessions we are so excited to bring you some incredibly helpful content on small animal dentistry and specifically, feline resorptive lesions. To help us, Dr. Shannon Gowland has recruited veterinary dental specialist Dr. Amy Thomson to get us up to speed on what we need to know about this common dental disease in our feline patients. Dr. Thomson mobile dentistry serv...

We're switching gears this week to talk about something different but very important: clinical skills training for veterinary students. So much has changed in the history of how veterinary students are taught and practice their skills, yet some themes and ideas remain consistent year to year. To speak to this, we have none other than OVC's manager of clinical skills learning, Dr. Andria Joy, who s...

Raw food diets seem to be a rising trend, and many clients swear by the benefits they see in their pet's skin and digestive health, or feel the diets are less processed than traditional pet foods and therefore healthier. But aside from these anecdotal claims, what does the science surrounding raw food diets say? This week Dr. Tiffany Durzi sat down with OVC's Clinical Nutritionist Dr. Caitlin Gran...

We're back with another exciting episode! This week Dr. Tiffany Durzi sat down with OVC neurologist Dr. Fiona James to find out her tips and tricks for diagnosing and treating epilepsy in companion animal patients. Dr. James also shed some light on the use and limitations of EEGs in epilepsy diagnosis, how this widely used human tool applies to canine patients, and where the future of epilepsy dia...

Although in today's society, veterinary practices appear on almost every corner, there was a time not so long ago where veterinary medicine was a novel profession. The Ontario Veterinary College may be the oldest in North America, but where did it come from, who started it, and how did to get to be where it is today? This week, join Dr. Tiffany Durzi as she interviews OVC's own veterinary historia...

Happy first day of school and welcome back to another episode of vet sessions! Even though we're sad to see summer come to an end, we couldn't be more excited for the lineup of episodes we have coming your way this fall. And to kick it all off, today's episode, with host Dr. Shannon Gowland, covers a topic that is sure to be common across all veterinary primary care clinics: feline upper respirato...

Most veterinarians will understand the feeling of wanting another pair of eyes to confirm the diagnostic results of complicated cases. Something like, does this dog really have right-sided cardiomegaly, or am I just seeing things? Imagine having that extra level of assurance right at your fingertips. That is what artificial intelligence (AI) in veterinary medicine is working towards, but is it too...

Although infectious diseases are always making headlines, avian influenza is one virus that seems to be consistently in the news, especially lately. This week, Dr. Omar Khan sat down with Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative veterinarian and board-certified veterinary pathologist Dr. Brian Stevens, to find out the inside scoop on this tenacious virus. In this episode we discuss the basic etiology,...

Welcome back! We are so pleased to share part two of our interview with the renowned Dr. Karol Mathews. Last time, Dr. Mathews shared her serendipitous journey in veterinary medicine, but in today's episode Dr. Tiffany Durzi explores one of Dr. Mathews many passions in veterinary medicine: pain management. Managing out-patient pain is often challenging and many clinicians feel limited in what they...

Most of you know the name Karol Mathews, either through her time as a professor, or through her work in OVC's ICU as an emergency and critical care specialist, or even through her ECC textbook that seems to be a staple in every veterinary clinic. But I'm sure many of you would be surprised to know that Dr. Mathews didn't grow up dreaming of becoming a doctor, despite boasting an incredibly success...

Welcome back! While it's certainly no secret that primary care is important for our all companion animals, this is especially true for working dogs. These specialized canines need to be kept healthy, as they rely on their strength, endurance, and keen senses to perform their valued jobs. However, it can be tough to get proper veterinary care when injuries are sustained in remote areas or a call to...

Welcome back! Although widely recognized in bovine medicine as a culprit of infertility and abortion, Tritrichomonas foetus isn't often added to differential lists for companion animals, so don't worry if it wasn't on your radar either. However, over the last decade, evidence has shown that T. foetus is likely involved in chronic large bowel diarrhea in cats, but not all cats are equally affected....

As veterinary professionals, we are known for our compassion and empathy to the animals we serve, as well as their owners. But what about compassion for ourselves? Well this doesn't always seem to come naturally to many veterinarians and veterinary professionals. So, for this week's episode we had veterinarian and mental health epidemiologist Dr. Andria Jones-Bitten sit down with Dr. Tiffany Durzi...