October's Scheduled Content Includes: 
Equine case series 13th of October 2020 - Now Available
Patrick Pollock and John Burford discusses 4 challenging cases and how well they healed with considered management.

Small animal case series 22nd of October 2020 (Live at 2pm UK time) Jon Hall and Brian Goleman share their success with some scary cases. 
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"Face your fears!" 27th of October - Expert Q&A to help resolve your nightmare cases. (Live 7pm UK time) 

Get the whole practice involved in our live lunch and learn to round off our Bandaging Bonanza month. Join Georgie Hollis BSc, as she presents the physics behind the common bandaging complications and how simple principles can help you build a better leg bandage. Click below to register for just £15+V.A.T (free for The Veterinary Wound Library Members).
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Become a member for just £72 (incl.V.A.T) during May to access this webinar and many other wound management webinars, guides and articles for 12 months! Join here using code VNAM for 20% off!

​Evidence Based Veterinary Medicine (EBVM) is the application of evidence to decision making in the course of a treatment or procedure. Evidence can take many forms from high level evidence consisting of expensive, highly controlled randomised trials to the lowest level being personal experience.

In practice Vets and Nurses adopting EBVM to guide their decision making will be actively seeking out the highest form of evidence to support their choice of care. In reality, this can only be taken into account based upon the resources and skills available to achieve the best outcome for the patient and owner. 

Pharmaceutical and medicinal products are generally well supported in terms of their specific role and proposed medicinal effect. This is because it is a legal requirement to have conclusive clinical and safety data to support the marketing authorisation and Veterinary prescription medicine status (POMV) that will allow the product to be legally prescribed in practice.

When it comes to wound management products and medical devices evidence can be rather thinner on the ground. The legal requirement being that the products must not make medicinal or pharmaceutical claims without a marketing authorisation. However, they can claim to support healing, to create an optimal environment, to soothe or even provide the benefits of a natural ingredient (that may or may not cytotoxic). As long as the product makes no medicinal claims it can be promoted for Veterinary use without any regulatory restriction.

So why don’t we use the wound products with the best evidence?
Unfortunately most wound products are intended for human use, so data is often extrapolated from human trials on chronic rather than acute wounds. Furthermore, it is notoriously difficult to get high level randomised data for medical devices, even in humans, where a wound is made deliberately and a randomised controlled trial performed. For one, it is hard to blind a study where dressings vary markedly depending on brand and function, and that the variables involved with the stage of healing, patient profile and wound location mean the list of potential studies is endless.

In terms of veterinary use, the relatively small size of the market (compared to human healthcare) and the ethical constraints of deliberately wounding a control group large enough to prove a benefit means there is a dearth of quality evidence. We therefore rely on lower level evidence consisting of small group evaluation, individual experience and personal recommendations. This creates a lot of room for a lot of varied products that may be perceived to assist healing even when the wound may have healed anyway.

The result is a wealth of products aiming to be the product of choice for all wounds while users become confused about hypothetical benefits that are hard to substantiate with high level research. When many wounds heal anyway the lack of distinct clinical benefit can confuse and contradict leading to a loss of confidence and timely decision making.

EBVM Matters - RCVS Knowledge
RCVS Knowledge last year published Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Matters: Our commitment to the future with the charity Sense about Science, in which 15 of the major UK member organisations, vet schools and policy-making bodies have come together to affirm their commitment to veterinary medicine based on sound scientific principles.

EBVM Matters is a commitment to advocating and using EBVM that RCVS Knowledge and the contributing author organisations have made, and are encouraging veterinary professionals and organisations to make i.e. to make clinical decisions according to their professional judgement, based on the best available evidence at the time and what is right for the individual animal and owner. “When rigorous research underpins medical decisions, adverse events can be minimised and patient outcomes can be improved.” – RCVS Knowledge

Several organisations and individuals have since signed up to this commitment. Our Founder, Georgie Hollis BSc, has pledged her support to the RCVS Knowledge EBVM Matters commitment on behalf of The Veterinary Wound Library.

Georgie wrote: "I believe that a pledge to uphold animal welfare can only be sustained where decisions are made based on best available evidence. Our field of wound care tech and education relies upon extrapolation of evidence from human healthcare where animal studies are lacking and RCT's are too costly to industry to focus in this area. As an independent advisory service (Veterinary Wound Library) we pledge to question the products promoted in the Veterinary sector for wound care and to encourage an evidence based approach, both in practice and in industry. We are committed to independence, dissemination and support of ethical, evidence based research that enables modern technologies to benefit the veterinary sector and animal welfare."

Find out more about the EBVM Matters commitment and pledge your support 

This year, the International Conference of The Veterinary Wound Healing Association (VWHA) is coming to the London ExCel! The conference will be held on 14-15th of May in association with the European Wound Management Association EWMA) Conference and the call for abstracts is now open, with your chance to win a full conference pass!

The theme for 2020 is Wound and surgical site infections in the modern veterinary clinic: prevention and treatment. “Our theme will address problems and questions we all encounter in everyday veterinary practice. Wound infections are caused by bacteria, and infections are prevented and treated with antibiotics… or are they? We live in a world where resistant bacteria cause increasing problems. What can we do to both reduce wound infections and the use of antibiotics? Do antibiotics prevent or increase surgical site infection rates? When are bacteria a problem in open wounds? If so, do we need antibiotics, or do we have alternative strategies? Or is it better not to treat bacteria at all? Join us to learn about the latest developments in the practical approach of wound infections.”

VWHA are calling for abstracts to be submitted within the theme. Five abstracts will be presented at the conference and the authors will receive a 3 day pass to the full EWMA conference!
You’ll need to be quick- the deadline for abstract submission is 15th March 2020.
 
Download Instructions for preparation of abstracts EWMA 2020 London

​Now submit your abstract here: https://form.jotform.com/200402862249349

We are delighted to announce the winners of the Andover Healthcare/Milliken Bandaging Art Competition (supported by VWL) which took place during November and December 2019. We would like to thank everyone who took the time to submit their entry and for participating in the competition promoting best practice in bandaging. The entries were all of a very high standard with much thought and effort put in, making it a great success. Congratulations to all of the above winners who each receive some great Petflex products!