Plenary – International Workforce Challenges Panel

Rena Acrlson-Lammers (AVMA), Chris Bell (CVMA), Owen Swan (HKVA) and Kate Hill (NZVA)

For this year’s opening plenary, we have Presidents from the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong veterinary associations discussing the workforce challenges and potential solutions to this global issue. All sectors of the veterinary profession and wider industry are finding it difficult to find and retain staff, support an exhausted workforce and work through the multifactor solutions required. Join us to learn what initiatives other countries are using to address these challenges now and into the future. This session will be moderated by our own CEO, Dr David Andrews. There will be an opportunity for some questions from the audience, so come along and participate in the future of our profession.

Plenary Session
Incivility, conflict, and the great resignation

Using emotional agility to protect your team and business

Olivia Oginska

Liv graduated in 2016 from university in Poland and shortly after graduation moved to the United Kingdom to undergo surgical training. During her career development, Liv was exposed to various workplace environments and worked with veterinary professionals of diverse backgrounds, cultures and nationalities.

Along the years of her professional training, Liv has been mentoring and providing mental health support to her colleagues. The passion for veterinary wellbeing led her to undertaking the Masters degree programme in Applied Positive Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, where Liv received the emotional intelligence coaching and appreciative inquiry training credentials. Based on several years of veterinary and peer-support experience, combined with Positive Psychology training, Liv created the Vet Gone Real platform, through which multiple individuals and veterinary teams receive coaching and workplace culture training. Liv is deeply passionate about the veterinary workplace wellbeing, emotional intelligence, psychological safety, quality improvement and creating tools that help veterinary practitioners to thrive in their career and personal life.

Plenary Session
Three powerful secrets to retaining your people

Marie-Claire Ross

Marie-Claire is a workplace sociologist (BA (Hons)), a Graduate of the Company Director’s Course and is on the SME Committee for the Australian Institute of Company Directors. In addition, she is also a Fellow of The CEO Institute. She has also been named Top 50 B2B Thought Leaders & Influencers You Should Work with in 2023 (APAC). She believes that business is a force for good and dreams of a world where people jump out of bed excited to go to work. Marie-Claire is recognised as a truth-teller who provides practical actions and tips that are like a breath of fresh air in organisations. Known for her passionate and yet empathetic approach, she supports leaders to lead the way they always wished others would lead them.

Ben Cunneen Memorial Plenary

Leptospirosis – a One Health issue in companion animals

Jane Sykes

Jane is a Professor of Small Animal Medicine at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine with a special interest in small animal infectious diseases. She obtained her veterinary degree and PhD in veterinary microbiology at the University of Melbourne in Australia, her residency in small animal internal medicine at the University of Minnesota, an MBA degree from the University of Georgia in 2020, and most recently a Graduate Certificate in Public Health at Kansas State University. She is Board-Certified in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, and joined the faculty at UC Davis in 2002. She has coauthored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, is the editor of the Elsevier textbook “Canine and Feline Infectious Diseases” and the editor of the 5th edition of Greene’s Infectious Diseases of the Dog and Cat. She co-founded the International Society of Companion Animal Infectious Diseases (ISCAID), was the first President of that Society, and is currently Secretary-Treasurer of ISCAID. She was President of the ACVIM Specialty of Small Animal Internal Medicine from 2012-2015, Associate Editor (Infectious Diseases) of the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine and is currently Chair of the ACVIM Board of Regents. Her research interests are focused on infectious diseases of dogs and cats that have public health significance.