Vet Sessions

Welcome to Season 3 of Vet Sessions! On our first episode of the new season, join Dr. Tiffany Durzi as she interviews Dr. Will Hawker on how to set yourself up for surgical success. Dr. Will Hawker is a current surgical resident at the OVC Companion Animal Hospital, and will be joining the faculty next year. Dr. Hawker gives useful tips on how to manage the challenges and stressors that come with...

This week we welcome back Dr. Andrew Peregrine to talk about hookworms (Ancylostoma caninum) in dogs with Dr. Omar Khan. Dr. Peregrine is OVC's parasitology professor and veterinarian, and he was previously on Vet Sessions to discuss Tritrichomona foetus in cats. Dr. Peregrine has been at the Ontario Veterinary College since 1997 as an Associate Professor in clinical parasitology. Currently he tea...

It's allergy season! Join us this week to listen to Dr. Shannon Gowland interview board-certified veterinary dermatologist Dr. Liz Goodale as she talks about how to manage itchy skin in dogs. Dr. Goodale received her veterinary degree from the Ontario Veterinary College and completed her dermatology residency at the University of California, Davis. She became a diplomate of the American College of...

Have you ever wondered about what the vet school experience is like? Look no further as recent graduate of the OVC Class of 2023, Dr. Hannah Mackellar, chats with Dr. Tiffany Durzi about her experience in vet school. During her time as a veterinary student, Dr. Mackellar was the president of the Community Outreach Club and also delivered an inspirational speech as the class valedictorian. Listen o...

Curious to learn more about pain management and rehabilitation? Join us this week to listen to a familiar voice, one of our hosts and founders of Vet Sessions, Dr. Tiffany Durzi. Dr. Durzi is a Diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP) in Canine and Feline Medicine, Certified Veterinary Acupuncturist (CVA), a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Therapist (CCRT) and a Certified...

Welcome back listeners! On this episode of Vet Sessions, Dr. Tiffany Durzi sat down with OVC graduate and Associate Registrar to the CVO, Dr. Kim Lambert. Dr. Lambert is a member of the quality practice team where she assists veterinarians in maintaining and improving their knowledge and skills throughout their careers. One question that she commonly gets asked is how should veterinarians approach...

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...