Blood smear examination remains an integral part of the complete blood count (CBC) and is probably the most important aspect of a routine haematological examination. It has the potential to provide the most diagnostically useful information in comparison with any other routine test. Blood smear examination may provide knowledge of the presence of a left-shift, toxic change, atypical cell populations, diagnostic red cell changes etc, which would otherwise remain undetected by other means. It is hence important to maintain a good level of competence with blood smear examination, to compliment (and significantly enhance) the results obtained from automated cell counters. This seminar will review and discuss changes present in a selection of case studies, as an example of diseases that rely heavily on the blood smear examination for a diagnosis.

Acid/base and blood gases for the uninitiated can seem a little complex at first. Access to equipment and interpretation of results can be a very helpful and rapid point-of-care diagnostic tool. Further, its use in the monitoring of critical care and anaesthetised patients can also be invaluable. In this talk I will discuss the approach to acid/base analysis and tips and tricks to assist in rapid analysis of blood gas results in the veterinary small animal setting, including some of the pitfalls to watch out for.

This webinar will present the approach to the neurological patient and this inevitably includes performing a full neurological examination. Although this often appears as a daunting task, it is quicker than we think and we do perform many parts of this examination during our daily consults. We will therefore try to review the key steps of the examination, what information they bring and how to exploit the information to localise the origin of the problem. The key questions we will address are: (i) has my patient got a neurological condition? And if so (ii) where is the lesion? The key steps to answer these two questions involve: (i) distant examination; (iii) examination of the postural reactions; (iii) testing spinal reflexes; (iv) testing cranial nerves. Once this is done, I will show how to combine the information to localise the lesion. Rather than insisting on the anatomy, I will give you tips and my take on this examination.