Apply for the 2019 FECAVA Travel Scholarship
22 May 2019
The FECAVA Travel Scholarship encourages small animal veterinarians to appreciate the differences in veterinary life within other European cultures.
The initiative allows two groups of small animal veterinary surgeons from different parts of Europe, to visit each other for a few days to observe practice life and ideally participate in a joint Continuing Education event. Please note that applications can only be accepted from FECAVA member countries.
The scholarship, totalling €2,000 is made possible through the generous support of LABOKLIN, who partner FECAVA on this project.
The deadline for applications for visits in 2019/20 is 1st July 2019 for individual applications and 1st August 2019 for joint applications and the recipients of the Scholarship will be announced at FECAVA Euro Congress in St Petersburg, Russia in September 2019.
Need inspiration?
Last year’s recipients were Scottish vets, Shona Macintosh and Ruby Shorrock and Spanish vets, Joana Bestard and Toni Llaneras. Below Joana and Toni describe their trip to Glasgow which took place after they hosted Shona and Ruby at their practice in Mallorca.
“In the last week of winter, thanks to the FECAVA scholarship, we flew to a country where we had never been before. We both were excited about the idea to get to know a new country and having the opportunity to work with colleagues from abroad.
The visit to Pets ‘n’ Vets was very positive in many aspects. We had a warm welcome from Shona, Ross and all the people working in the Roundhouse Hospital, plus all the branches spread around Glasgow. At the Roundhouse, we attended the morning rounds and various staff meetings. This part was very helpful in understanding how the practice works and we shared ideas by comparing it with our system.
For medicine, we spent time on consults with different vets. We also attended laparoscopic surgeries, dental and imaging procedures. We work in the internal medicine and abdominal ultrasound service back home, so just being around the inpatients and the hospitalisation departments and watching how all nurses and vets work together was really useful and we feel we learnt from them.
We attended CPD taught by Ross Allan (who wore a kilt) and had haggis and Irn Bru for dinner which was great! We enjoyed the CPD a lot and learnt a few more things about orthopaedics as well as medicine.
We had an awesome visit to the University of Glasgow Veterinary Hospital. We had a private guided tour where they showed us all the facilities and different areas from the hospital and how the building was designed to make the work efficient and easier. Later in the afternoon, Ross took us to the Kelvingrove Museum where we saw dinosaurs, an original Dali painting and Charles Renne Mackintosh art. On the way home, nature showed us how wonderful the Scottish weather can be, and we experienced a storm so great that it had a name; Gareth!
On the Friday night, our hosts planned a night out for us with some food and drinks and we had a great time talking about veterinary and life experiences. We really appreciate how welcoming and kind was everyone was! The next morning we met Ross and Shona and they showed us the beautiful Loch Katrine. It was snowing which made the experience much more interesting, because we do not see many snow days in Mallorca! Sitting on a boat in the middle of Loch Katrine while it was snowing was simply amazing. Afterwards, we had our first ever afternoon tea while learning a bit more about Scottish traditions.
In conclusion we enjoyed our time in Glasgow very much. One of the best parts was how kind, nice and helpful the people were. We now know a different way of working and we will take some good ideas to our Hopital Aragó in Mallorca. On the other hand, we also explained to the Scottish vets how we do things in Mallorca and we think they also learnt from us. The experience has been very exciting and it gave us extra motivation for our daily work! We also experienced a new country and were shown around by locals, which makes the experience much better and more real. Projects like this from FECAVA are necessary and important in helping vets around Europe become better and more experienced professionals”.