BEVA Honours The Brightest And Best In Equine Veterinary Medicine
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This year’s prestigious awards ceremony at BEVA Congress (13-16 September 2023) recognised a variety of professionals for their considerable talents within the equine veterinary sector and included a new award for Veterinary Nurses.
The awards were presented by HRH The Princess Royal and BEVA President David Rendle on Thursday 14thSeptember 2023.
The BEVA Equine Welfare Award, sponsored by the Blue Cross was presented to Jim Green, who received an exclusive Irish bog oak trophy together with a cash prize.
Jim joined Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service as a firefighter in 1996 where his rural background was instrumental in developing awareness of a range of rural issues, including response to animal rescues. For 12 years Jim led a local and national drive to improve knowledge and skills for this challenging operational incident type, orchestrating teams within Hampshire and training rescue team leaders and veterinarians.
Jim co-founded the British Animal Rescue and Trauma Association (BARTA) which supports and trains vets and emergency responders in the resolution of emergency situations involving animals with informed, safe and welfare driven plans. Since Jan 2022 BARTA has trained over 100 vet responders, over 250 emergency responders (including vets and ground staff) for racecourses and British Eventing, members of the local authorities and the police. Jim’s team are constantly identifying new arenas in which incidents involving animals occur and considering how to work best with those agencies to improve safety and welfare. Jim continues to respond operationally to animal incidents through his on-call role as an Animal Rescue Specialist with Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service.
The Nurse Empowerment Award is a new award seeking to commend any member of the practice team or wider profession who has empowered equine nurses and championed their role within the profession, either through leading by example or through championing the role of the equine nurse.
The inaugural Nurse Empowerment Award was presented to Marie Rippingale for her tireless work to develop, promote and advocate the role of the equine veterinary nurse. Marie has been involved in all areas of curriculum development, lecturing and examining for multiple awarding bodies. She is an active member of BEVA and has volunteered in Gambia, helping improve welfare for working donkeys and provide education to their owners.
Prior to lecturing Marie worked as a head nurse in an equine practice where she provided many desperately needed CPD opportunities for equine nurses. She has been a champion in encouraging vets to allow and encourage equine veterinary nurses work to their full ability, complete schedule 3 procedures and to complement the veterinary team.
The BEVA Richard Hartley Clinical Award was presented to Tania Sundra for the paper ‘Preliminary observations on the use of ertugliflozin in the management of hyperinsulinaemia and laminitis in 51 horses: a case series’ by Tania Sundra, Erin Kelty and Dave Rendle published in November 2022 issue of Equine Veterinary Education.
The award is given in memory of Richard Hartley, a founder member of BEVA and President from 1974-1975. It is awarded to the first author of the best paper published in Equine Veterinary Journal or Equine Veterinary Education with direct clinical application. The £1000 prize is intended to support travel of the first author and/or co-authors.
The Peter Rossdale Equine Veterinary Journal (EVJ) Open Award was presented to Edward Knowles for the paper ‘Predictors of laminitis development in a cohort of non-laminitic ponies’ by Edward Knowles, Jonathan Elliott, Patricia A. Harris, Yu-Mei Chang and Nicola J. Menzies-Gow, published in the March 2022 issue of Equine Veterinary Journal.
This award and £1000 prize is given for the paper that best achieves EVJ’s mission to publish articles which influence and improve clinical practice and/or add significantly to the scientific knowledge that underpins and supports veterinary medicine in relation to the horse.
The new Peter Rossdale EVE Literary Award was presented to Sirous Sadeghian Chaleshtori for the paper ‘Measurement of ANP, BNP, and endothelin-1 concentrations in jumping horses with heart valvular regurgitation and their correlation with the dimensions of heart structures’ by Sirous Sadeghian Chaleshtori, Mohammad Reza Mokhber Dezfouli, Mohammad Hassan Najizadeh, Golam Reza Nikbakht Borujeni, published in the July 2022 issue of Equine Veterinary Education. Sirous was unable to attend Congress to collect the Award.
The award was introduced in 2022 in memory of Peter Rossdale and is sponsored by Rossdales Ltd who provided the £1000 prize. The award is presented to the best clinical research paper published in Equine Veterinary Education (EVE). Peter Rossdale, a true pioneer in the profession, established EVE in 1989 recognising the need to encourage education of clinicians and to encourage clinicians to publish clinical papers.
The Sam Hignett Award All Clinical Research presentations from general equine practice are eligible for the Sam Hignett Award. A continuous process of assessment will take place throughout the Clinical Research Sessions and the winner of the award will be announced after Congress through the BEVA website and newsletter.
For further information on the BEVA Awards visit https://www.beva.org.uk/About-Us/BEVA-Awards
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