Fall 2024 EBVMA Newsletter
from our President, Gary Block, DVM, MS, DACVIM
Hello colleagues,
Our quarterly newsletter is focused on highlighting the work of the EBVMA and keeping members apprised of our initiatives as well as opportunities for member engagement.
We recently completed a collaboration with VIN where multiple experts-including two current EBVMA Board members-recorded a 90 minute presentation that delved into evidence-based antibiotic therapy for conditions including UTIs and diarrhea as well as their appropriate use in the perioperative period. This is currently being edited and will be available on VIN and on our EBVMA website in the near future. Ou next topic will likely be focused on a review of common analgesics used for dogs and cats with DJD. Anyone with expertise in this area and interested in participating in this roundtable should reach out via info@ebvma.org
We had a “Veterinary Viewpoints” article published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine entitled “Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine: Potential, Practice and Pitfalls”. This article, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/jvim.17239 is an overview of the history of EBVM and a public pronouncement of what our organization is going to do to highlight the need for dedicated teaching of EBVM at the university level, for rigorous adherence to established research reporting guidelines, for expansion of EBVM infrastructure, and for the provision of easily accessible tools that permit clinicians to incorporate EBVM into their daily practice. The article also highlights this year being the 20th anniversary of the founding of the EBVMA.
In September, the EBVMA Board had a letter to the editor published in Veterinary Record that was critical of the WSAVA’s decision to include multiple continuing education tracks at their 2024 Congress promoting traditional Chinese veterinary medicine (TCVM). The letter notes that such inclusion was a tacit endorsement of a largely pseudoscientific alternative therapy that often utilizes “medicines” derived from wildlife including highly endangered species. Those looking for a more detailed critique of TCVM can check out an article written by EBVMA past-President, Brennen McKenzie at https://skeptvet.com/2011/05/traditional-chinese-veterinary-medicine/
We also wanted to bring to your attention an important decision by Wiley & Sons to stop publishing the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. This journal, with a history of dubious publication standards, has had hundreds of papers retracted. In their website announcement, Wiley also reported that it was closing 19 additional journals citing “large-scale research fraud.”
We are still looking for members interested in participating in a new initiative where the EBVMA will critically review web-based point of care (POC) clinical support tools such as VetCompanion, PlumbPro, and VetBytes with the goal of publishing these results.
Lastly, stay tuned for an invitation to an open meeting in January where EBVMA members can share their thoughts, ideas and suggestions with the Board.
Gary Block DVM, MS, DACVIM
President EBVMA
P.S. Anyone interested in getting more involved with the EBVMA, volunteering for one of our committees, writing an article for Vet Practice News, working on one of our research projects, or with interest in joining the Board should email us at info@ebvma.org
Who’s who on the Board?
Martin Whitehead BSc, PhD, BVSc, CertSAM, MRCVS
Chipping Norton Veterinary Hospital, Chipping Norton, UK
My first degree was in psychology, followed by a PhD in comparative auditory biophysics – studying the sounds produced by the ears of vertebrates, from frogs to humans. I then moved to the US and spent seven years as a biomedical scientist in medical school tertiary-care ENT departments, doing both basic and clinical-applied research. There, in the early ‘90s, I witnessed some of the early benefits of evidence-based medicine in the human field (and resistance to EBM among senior doctors). As a result, after returning to the UK and training as a veterinarian, I was an early proponent of EBVM in the UK.
My entire veterinary career has been in UK private practice, including first-opinion farm and equine (both stopped a few years ago), small-animal, exotic-pet & zoo work, and referral-level small-animal medicine and exotic-pet practice. I am an Advanced Practitioner in small-animal medicine. Despite my very mixed-practice past, nowadays almost all of my clinical work is running a radioiodine unit for hyperthyroid cats, zoo work and exotic pets.
I have carried-out and published some veterinary research in practice, and written articles on a number of veterinary topics – my veterinary publications are listed here: https://www.chippingnortonvets.co.uk/about-us/research-and-publications.
I believe clinical practice should be evidence-based, science-based and rational. I have tried to make the veterinary hospital I have worked in for 25 years, and co-run for 16 years, as evidence-based as possible. My previous career as a research scientist gives me greater ability to critique research papers, and a deeper understanding of the quality and reliability of evidence, than that of most veterinarians. I have a particular interest in countering both irrationality (e.g., alternative medicine), and misinformation and disinformation produced using scientific methodology (agnotology), in the veterinary sphere.
Bob L. Larson, DVM, PhD, ACT, ACAN, ACVPM
Dr. Bob Larson received his DVM from Kansas State University in 1987 and a PhD from the KSU Department of Animal Sciences in 1992. He spent five years in private practice and then 10 years at the University of Missouri. In 2006 he returned to Kansas State University as the Coleman Chair of Food Animal Production Medicine where his teaching and research focuses on beef cattle production and health. He is board certified by the American College of Theriogenologists, the American College of Animal Nutrition, and the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine – Epidemiology specialty.
Bob was first exposed to evidence-based medicine through interaction with colleagues and books such as: Where’s the Evidence – Debates in Modern Medicine by William Silverman (Oxford University Press, 1998), and Evidence-Based Medicine 2nd Ed by Sackett, Straus, Richardson, Rosenberg, and Haynes (Churchill Livingstone, 2000). At about the same time, others in veterinary medicine were also becoming interested in evidence-based medicine and the first Symposium on Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine was hosted by the College of Veterinary Medicine at Mississippi State University in 2004. From that initial meeting, a Steering Committee for Evidence Based Veterinary Medicine was formed and Bob was the Chair for 2005-2006. Shortly after, Bob was a charter member of The Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Association and served as the first president of the organization from 2006 to 2008 and currently serves on the Board of Directors.
