Meeting Report – Perth, Australia 2015

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17^th IVRA Meeting Report – Perth, Australia

The 17th International Veterinary Radiology Association meeting was held at Perth, Western Australia, August 16 - 21, 2015. The conference venue was located in the historic port city of Fremantle, close to the waterfront. Beside the comfortable conference hotel, a range of alternative accommodation was conveniently located.

142 veterinarians from 31 countries attended, a decrease from the previous meeting attendance, most likely due to the long distance to travel for most of the IVRA members.

Special thanks goes to the Australasian Association of Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging (AAVDI) for hosting the meeting.

The organizing committee of Drs Shona Reese, David Reese, Nerissa Stander and especially Nola Lester as chair, as well as the professional congress organiser, Renee Bennett, did an excellent job and were always friendly and helpful in all situations.

Besides the wonderful meeting location, encouraging a collegial and inclusive atmosphere, they offered an interesting social program to experience the lifestyle in this outstanding region.

Science

The scientific committee with Dr. Cathy Beck as chair did an excellent job with eventually having 75 papers presented, of which 48 were oral presentations and 27 were posters. Four excellent keynote speakers and five masterclass speakers skillfully reviewed a variety of topics. The AAVDI provided a continuing professional development meeting for general practitioners in conjunction with the meeting. The CPD was well attended by general practitioners with an interest in imaging from throughout Australasia and the Asia Pacific region.

10 exhibitors and 5 sponsors supported the meeting. Major sponsors were:

Platinum Sponsor:

VETCT, Consultants in Telemedicine, Cambridge, UK

Gold sponsors:

ANTECH Diagnostics, Irvine USA
IDEXX Laboratories, Westbrook, USA

Business

The IVRA membership number in June 2015 was 1088.

A proposal was accepted that North Africa and Spanish speaking South America should be represented in the Board of Directors. Prof. Magda Mahmoud Ali Omar from Asyut, Egypt was elected as a director for North Africa Director with the position for South America still open.

Robert Kirberger (Pretoria, South Africa) was elected as the new President, Hester McAllister (Dublin, Ireland) the Vice President, and Robert Pechman (Baton Rouge, USA) the new Treasurer. Nola Lester (Perth, Australia) was elected as the new Secretary and Bernd Tellhelm (Giessen, Germany) became Past President.

Bernd Tellhelm thanked retiring officers Dr. Peter Lord and Dr. John Pharr for their long and successful service to IVRA and hoped they would continue to attend IVRA meetings despite stepping down as a director and treasurer respectively.

Awards

Johann Lang, Division of Clinical Radiology, Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Switzerland was the recipient of the J. Kevin Kealy Award. This award, named in honor of Emeritus Professor J. Kevin Kealy (organizer of the first meeting of the IVRA, the first President, and an Honorary Member of IVRA), recognizes a member who has made substantial published scientific contributions to veterinary radiology.

Three Mike Bernstein Travel Fellowships were awarded to veterinarians with a special interest in veterinary radiology to support attendance and presentation of a paper. These winners came from countries with little previous contact with others in veterinary radiology. It is reasoned that those awarded a Fellowship will take the knowledge gained from the IVRA Meeting and use it to foster the development of radiology in their own country. There were 10 applicants for the award. The recipients were Prof. Vandana Sangwan from India, Dr.Yasamin Vali from Iran and Dr. Le Quang Thong from Vietnam.

Two Educational Scholarships were awarded to provide veterinarians who do not have access to specialty training in Clinical Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging at their own institution with the opportunity of studying for a period of time in a clinical veterinary radiology training program. The IVRA expects that the knowledge and experience gained by the successful applicant will be applied at the applicant’s faculty and used to improve its standards of clinical veterinary radiology. The scholarships were awarded to Olga Ponomarjova, Latvia (supervisor Dr. Gendron, Bern, Switzerland); Bandula Kumara Wickramasekara Rajapakshage, Sri Lanka (supervisor Drs. von Pueckler and Ondreka, Giessen, Germany); and Rumen Roydev, Bulgaria (supervisor Dr. Saunders, Ghent, Belgium).

The W. Harker Rhodes Award for the best oral and poster presentation by a trainee or junior colleague, was shared by Caroline R. Gordon, UK and Sebastian Schaub, Germany as joint winners for the oral presentation and to A. Anson and S. Kneisel of Austria for their poster presentation.

As a special gesture three IVRA members were honored for their long and outstanding service for IVRA by receiving certificates. These were:

Andrew Wood, Australia for 39 years of exemplary and dedicated service to IVRA
John W. Pharr, Saskatoon, Canada for 9 years of exemplary and dedicated service as treasurer to IVRA and
Hester McAllister, University College Dublin, for 21 years of exemplary and dedicated service as secretary to IVRA and an additional 6 years as a director.

Next meeting

The 18^th (next) meeting will be a combined meeting with ACVR in the USA in 2018. The venue has not been established yet. Information will appear on the IVRA website which can be reached via a link on the sitemap of the ACVR website. All members of ACVR, AAVDI, EAVDI, Australasian, Brazilian, European, Japanese and South Korean imaging societies are automatically also members of IVRA, and are welcome to the next meeting. For more information see “IVRA meeting” on the homepage.

Bernd Tellhelm, Past President, IVRA