Friends’ Surgical Training and Continuing Education for Veterinarians
In collaboration with International Veterinary Consultants (IVC), Friends established a sustainable teaching center in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. Our courses provide lectures and hands-on experience for veterinarians, veterinary technicians and clinic volunteers.
Course Emphasis
Through this training, we provide continuing education opportunities for veterinary professionals whose main focus is controlling dog and cat overpopulation. Our training specifically addresses issues encountered in spay/neuter clinics.
Our Alianza Animal Manzanillo clinic provides a unique training environment not generally seen by veterinarians nor offered in universities.
For example, Mexican veterinary courses tend to focus on large farm animals because farms receive the bulk of the veterinarian’s attention. Mexican university programs allot very little time to small-animal care and surgery like that offered in our courses.
The need for veterinarians in urban communities with growing small-animal populations has increased, therefore, the veterinarian who practices urban-area medicine benefits greatly from our continuing education program. Our training emphasises small animal care and specifically sterilization surgeries.
In our post-grad courses, more veterinarians are receiving vital practice; they are honing their skills to perform spay/neuter surgeries and to practice medicine more humanely.
Course Content
The FOMAW and IVC continuing education courses emphasize a sound base in surgical skills such as:
- sterile technique,
- pain management,
- anesthesia,
- physical exams and
- diagnostic techniques
In addition to expanding their knowledge and skill base through continuing education, participating veterinarians receive mentoring from highly experienced professionals practicing small-animal medicine and surgery.
We report on our surgical training and continuing education courses with up-to-the-minute newsletter articles posted on our News page.