CPD Solutions

New Veterinary CPD Brochure Landing Soon

Susie Coughlan — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:57:17 +0000

There’s a new Veterinary CPD and Veterinary Nurse CPD brochure on its way to you if you are on our mailing list. If you don’t get it, please contact us and make sure that we have your details and permission to mail to you. This brochure features some of our autumn courses, and it’ll be perfect for you if you haven’t completed all of your required CPD hours for 2010. There’s a special emphasis on Practical CPD courses with extensive hands-on sessions where you can learn and practise new skills, clinical and surgical techniques. These are the courses that will give you skills that you can use directly in your practice on your return, for the benefit of your patients, their owners and your practice bottom line. (Hopefully in that order.) Look out for the ‘Very Practical’ labels on the courses to identify the right course for you.

£800 Veterinary CPD Benefits for Keysteps Online Members

Susie Coughlan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:49:52 +0000

I’m delighted to announce that all of our Keysteps Online Members, vets and nurses, will benefit from £800 of Free veterinary or veterinary nurse CPD during the coming year. In addition to unlimited access to quality video programmes on small animal practice topics, Keysteps Online Members will receive free webinars, free mp3s and pdf downloads, free videos on DVD, CPD vouchers and extensive attendance course discounts. If you’d like to see what you get with Keysteps Online, sign up for a free trial at www.keysteps.net

Clinical Club – New Veterinary Video Site

Susie Coughlan — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:19:40 +0000

Clinical Club is now available for vets and nurses. Clinical Club will help to keep you up to date in key areas of small animal practice or small animal nursing. Each month you get a video programme by a leading expert, plus a download of the audio so that you can listen to it away from the computer, and a PDF of the transcript to print. Video programmes are from our flagship online veterinary CPD site Keysteps Online. The main difference with Clinical Club is that you get clinical information and updates in one selected key area each month. There is no minimum membership period and the monthly fee is highly affordable for both vets and nurses. Members also benefits from unique special offers. You can check out Clinical Club here with a free demo.

Keysteps Online Programmes Gain RACE Approval

Susie Coughlan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:05 +0000

CPD Solutions is now a RACE approved provider of continuing education. Three Keysteps Online veterinary CPD video programmes have also been approved as providing one hour of continuing education each. The first programmes are on Comminuted Fracture Management, Gastric Dilatation and Volvulus and Canine Lymphoma. More programmes will now be submitted to RACE for approval so that US veterinarians can get the full benefit of a Keysteps Online subscription. This is believed to be the first instance of RACE approval for UK-based online veterinary video continuing education, and it is an exciting development for CPD Solutions. Other overseas markets for the Keysteps Online service are also being researched.

New Look for online Veterinary CPD

Susie Coughlan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:02:05 +0000

Our Keysteps Online website providing video veterinary CPD and veterinary CE has had an upgrade! The login area at www.keysteps.net now contains much more information about the programme, together with a programme clip and feedback from subscribers. We’ll be developing this area further in the future. Once you login as a subscriber or register for a free trial, the vet’s CPD site has been subdivided into several additional channels to make it easier for vets to find specific programmes. There are now channels on Surgery, Medicine, Exotics, Surgical Refreshers, Business Skills and one for the most Recent programmes. Take a look now at www.keysteps.net

VAT rate change for Veterinary CPD courses

Susie Coughlan — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:27:19 +0000

As I’m sure you know, the VAT rate increased from 15% to 17.5% on January 1st 2010. This has caused adminstrative challenges for everyone in business, and has hit small businesses such as veterinary practices particularly hard. It’s clear that the government is sadly lacking in ministers who have successfully run businesses. Anyway I’m sorry to add to your challenges when it comes to booking your veterinary cpd for 2010, but if you have a Spring 2010 Brochure, the VAT rate and the prices including VAT are now wrong. As brochures have to be produced well in advance to allow you to book the courses of your choice, I’m afraid we had to include the old 15% VAT rate in this brochure. When you’re booking courses using this brochure, please calculate the VAT at 17.5% and send in the correct course fee. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Matthew Watkinson – where has he been working?

Susie Coughlan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:03:54 +0000

I must apologise in advance for this post which is not about veterinary CPD at all; however I just have to say something on this issue. I expect most vets and nurses have seen Matthew Watkinsons ‘expose’ article of the veterinary profession by now- if not see the link below.

The article starts with the question ‘are vets the saints they are made out to be?’ In the article, Matthew goes on to say how ashamed he is to be part of our profession. He describes how pet insurance has assisted unscrupulous vets in forcing expensive, unnecessary and cruel treatments on unsuspecting pet owners.

Quote from the article:

‘But, however you look at it, insurance is simply a licence to print money. Unfortunately, the only creatures insurance helps are vets. If you are a loving owner you will not want to put your pet through cruel, lengthy and costly procedures.’

Hmmmm……Then he goes on to describe a greyhound that was recommended an amputation and chemotherapy because of ‘bone cancer’.

‘And even if it did give that greyhound an extra year or so of life, how could anyone explain to it that the suffering was for a reason? That lying in a small cage, surgically maimed, and hooked up to a drip for weeks, perhaps months, would be ‘worth it’.

Oh please! Where has this man been working? Who keeps a dog in a cage hooked up to a drip for weeks or months after an amputation? It’s far more likely to be home within a couple of days; much happier because it is now pain-free. Matthew also conveniently does not mention any of the multiple instances in which pets have been saved from extensive suffering or being euthanased unnecessarily. How about the dog with a fractured femur that requires plating; the crippled Labrador with hip dysplasia or the dachshund with multiple disc extrusions? All of these and many many more can be successfully treated and go on to have a much better quality of life. However money is required to pay for the practice facilities, theatre, equipment, gases, drugs, nurses, surgeon, cleaners, receptionists, etc etc. There is a lot involved in providing surgery and ongoing medical treatments effectively. And they have to be paid for.

Matthew’s clinical knowledge is decidedly suspect. I was relieved to see that he has not attended any of our veterinary CPD courses! And did I forget to mention that he is promoting a new book? I’m sure that has nothing to do with this sensationalist, inaccurate and misleading article, which is far more likely to have a negative effect on pet welfare than pet insurance, as owners (or Daily Mail – reading owners) resist treatments that would benefit their animals.

Please comment- I would love to hear what you think on this issue.

TPLO Veterinary CPD Course

Susie Coughlan — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:05:26 +0000

If you’d like to learn how to perform the TPLO (Slocum technique) next year, we’ve got the course for you. A highly practical, 2-day intensive course with leading TPLO specialist Jon Dyce of Ohio State University. This course has successfully taught hundreds of vets to carry out the Slocum TPLO; join them and make use of this valuable procedure in your practice when you attend this course in May 2010. Details are on the website in the Orthopaedic Courses section. There’s also a free article to download in this section which will give you practical tips from the experts for case selection and performance of the procedure.

New Orthopaedic Veterinary CPD Courses

Susie Coughlan — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:51:04 +0000

We’ve got 2 new courses for next year, designed as a follow-on from our very popular Introduction to Orthopaedics course. The latter, designed by specialist Orthopaedic surgeon Toby Gemmill, has helped hundreds of delegates to start out in orthopaedic surgery and taken away some of their anxiety when faced with procedures such as femoral head and neck excision and dealing with patellar luxations. So if you’ve been on Introduction to Orthopaedics or another introductory course, check out ‘Moving on with Joint Surgery’ and ‘Moving on with Fracture Surgery’ in the Orthopaedic Surgery section of our website. These could be the next step in developing your decision-making and practical skills.

Website Competition Winner

Susie Coughlan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:15:56 +0000

I’m delighted to announce the winner of our first website competition! Amanda Kleinman wins £100 of Amazon vouchers after correctly identifying the veterinary item in the picture. I’m sure you got it right- yes it was a stethoscope. We did keep the first one easy on purpose- the next pic will be a bit harder. Around 200 people entered the competition so if that’s repeated with the next one it gives you a very good chance of winning. Let us know if you’d rather we offered a different prize for the competition, and also if there are any additional courses you’d like to see in our veterinary cpd and veterinary nurse cpd range.