As we countdown to 2021, we reflect on some of your top posts, resources, news and information in 2020. That’s the social media posts you shared, liked and commented on the most, the resources you spent the longest time reading on our website and the links you clicked on more than any others.
This is a chance for you to re-visit the WSAVA content you loved, found the most useful, or even missed in 2020!
Dr Siraya Chunekamrai
WSAVA President
The year has proven an important fact that companion animals and the veterinarians that care for them truly play an important part in human wellness and wellbeing. A big thank you to WSAVA members for doing so much this very difficult year to care for their patients – and, in so doing, to care for their owners. The human-human as well as human-companion animal bond is what will see us through this pandemic together. There is no better time than now to embrace our global community through all the digital assets created for us to become connected and support one another no matter where we are
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Countdown!
In April, World Veterinary Day brought over 145,000 people to our Facebook page, making it the top post of 2020! Over 10,600 people liked, commented on, shared and clicked on the post that celebrated Veterinarians across the world! World Veterinary Day came at a particularly difficult time for our members and times are still tough. In the post we directed people to our resources, information and guides. We salute you, for your efforts and tireless work throughout 2020 and particularly during the global pandemic, to protect human and animal health and welfare
Following on from the launch of the WSAVA’s popular Global Nutrition Guidelines, the Global Nutrition Committee (GNC) has worked hard to develop more useful tools and update existing ones , included on the ‘Global Nutrition Guidelines’ page. Since April, the page has been visited almost 36,000 times – showing how important the tools and information are to our members. Check it out for any new updates!
The Global Vaccination Guidelines are still a valuable resource for veterinarians globally. This year, the Vaccination Guidelines Group (VGG) also published the Recommendations for the Vaccination Guidelines for Small Animal Practitioners in Latin America. We have been continuing to see the popularity of these important resources grow, and this year was no exception! Have you seen the latest webinar by Dr Mary Marcondes about these recommendations for LATAM?
A huge focus for WSAVA in 2020 has been offering support to our members and partners to help them navigate each stage of the global COVID-19 pandemic. With so much fear, uncertainty and misinformation circulating, we hosted webinars with experts, created a resource hub, posted advice and conducted surveys to equip members with evidence and offer valuable advice on optimal veterinary care during the pandemic. To date, our ‘COVID-19 and Companion Animals – What we know today’ webinar has been watched by over 22,300 of you on YouTube, with over 1,100 of you liking the video. The video transcript was available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish! We’re now creating even more online resources and education, to support WSAVA members both during the pandemic and beyond.
The WSAVA/FECAVA Congress was scheduled to take place in September 2020 in Warsaw, Poland, but due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, we had to shuffle things around to make sure you all could still enjoy our annual meet-up, get the latest knowledge, and enjoy a chance to discuss, share and collaborate. After initially moving the dates to March of 2021, we eventually had to transform the meeting to a fully virtual event!
With already over 1,500 people registered for the meeting, 130,152 website visitors in 2020, and an average of 23,000 people reached through our Congress newsletter updates, we are on the way to experience a unique, global reaching Congress, as a united veterinary community. We can’t wait to meet you from 21-24 March 2021, online!
More and more WSAVA members are visiting the Global Guidelines page to find WSAVA Guidelines published over the years – from Animal Welfare Guidelines to Hereditary Disease Guidelines and more. It’s quickly becoming one of our most viewed pages this year! The guidelines support companion animal veterinarians by setting minimum standards of care for conditions or issues of global relevance and recommending best practice in each area. They aim to provide clinicians with clear diagnostic and treatment guidelines, wherever in the world they are in practice.
The WSAVA List of Essential Medicines for Cats and Dogs was launched in March 2020 as a result of over 75% of our members telling us about problems they experienced in accessing veterinary drugs, adversely affecting their ability to address the needs of their patients. Launching this important resource, was a milestone in our efforts to support global drug availability and one that was received well particularly on social media by our members and followers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn! Over 5,000 of you clicked to access this resource which is still every bit as relevant today!
In the year that digital became more important than ever, we redesigned and relaunched the WSAVA website to make it even easier for members, veterinarians and visitors to access education and resources, and connect. As a global veterinary community this is critical to us. Together, we are stronger! Since then, you’ve been visiting our site more than ever, and even more of you have been able to find and learn from all the different resources and activities we’ve created as a community.
In August we also shared the launch of the new Feline Grimace Scale website, a simple but effective instrument for acute pain assessment, designed by the University of Montreal including Dr Paulo Steagall and Dr Beatriz Monteiro, members of the WSAVA Global Pain Council. The site has a whole host of downloadable resources, guidance, helpful videos and more. Together with the launch of the manual in January, this important tool that uses changes in facial expressions to assess pain has been one of our most popular resources this year – receiving a large amount of likes and clicks
This year, thanks to our Educational Partner, the International Partnership for Dogs (IPFD), we have started sharing useful information about dog breeds and their predispositions. Staying up to date with common, let alone rare, health risks in susceptible dog breeds, is difficult so these posts have been very popular as they highlight breed-specific diseases and signpost helpful resources. Here’s one of the most popular issues about Welsh Corgi’s.