Thursday Sessions - September 24

Registration & Breakfast will open at 7:00am.

*This session will begin at 7:00am all other sessions will begin at 8:30am.
Rural Veterinary Roundtable Review
Room 299

7:00-8:00am - Rural Veterinary Roundtable Review & Discussion – Drs. Dan Grooms, Jessica Ward, Aubrey Cordray and Locke Karriker
This interactive session will synthesize key themes and insights from the summer 2026 Rural Veterinary Roundtable series hosted by IVMA and the College of Veterinary Medicine. Speakers will highlight challenges, opportunities, and promising strategies identified through discussions with rural practitioners, veterinary students, community members, legislators, and other stakeholders across Iowa. Participants will review solutions already underway, explore additional ideas for strengthening the rural veterinary workforce, and contribute their perspectives during a facilitated discussion focused on priorities and next steps.

Sessions listed below will begin at 8:30am.
Click on the sessions below for detailed times, topic titles and descriptions.

Companion Animal Session
Summit Ag Hall - 1st floor (previously Benton)

8:30-9:30am - What’s New in Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care - Dr. Meredith 't Hoen
Veterinary medicine is ever changing and new advancements and ideas come along each year. In emergency and critical care there are exciting new developments that can improve our delivery care both in the general practice and specialty setting. This lecture will cover major updates from the last several years that can be directly applied to daily practice. A major topic of discussion will be current recommendations for fluid therapy, based on the most AAHA consensus statement, as well as the appropriate use of fluids in the treatment of toxicities. Updated CPR guidelines were published in 2024 and major changes to these recommendations will also be reviewed. Additional topics that will be addressed are updates to the treatment of urinary obstruction in cats, the role of steroids in the treatment of allergic reactions, new techniques to treat upper airway obstructions in dogs, management of status epilepticus and pulmonary hypertension.

9:30-10:00am - BREAK

10:00-11:00am - Latest and Greatest Updates in Veterinary Dermatology! - Dr. Jason Pieper
During this session we will cover some of the newest information, techniques and medications available in veterinary dermatology which could be beneficial in your skin and ear cases. We will look to see what is new in the veterinary literature for studies to identify new information or applications that you can use in your patients the next day. Some of the latest and greatest information that will be brought to you is directly from the annual Veterinary Dermatology conference that hasn’t even been published yet!

11:00am-Noon - What’s New in Veterinary Ophthalmology - Dr. Rachel Allbaugh
This presentation will discuss the use of photodynamic therapy for ocular surface or periocular neoplasia, new practices for managing corneal ulcers across species that strive to reduce antimicrobial resistance, techniques to treat equine recurrent uveitis, and more. Resources such as the free VetEyeDoctor YouTube channel will be highlighted.

LUNCH Noon-1:30pm

Companion Animal Afternoon Session - Sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health
Summit Ag Hall - 1st floor (previously Benton)

1:30-2:30pm - Vaccines & Vaccinations - Dr. Richard Ford
In the context of infectious disease, the relationship between the patient, the pathogen, and the patient’s lifestyle is complex, especially when considering the multitude of opportunities for exposure the individual pet dog or cat has today.  While vaccines are well regarded for their ability to mitigate the consequences of exposure to pathogenic viruses and bacteria, all vaccines are not the same…even if indicated for prevention of the same disease.  Today, unlike any time in the past, the selection and use of vaccines in clinical practice has become significantly more challenging with the availability of multiple vaccine technologies designed to target the same pathogen:  killed (inactivated), modified-live (attenuated), recombinant, DNA, etc.  This presentation offers the clinician practical insight into the spectrum of vaccines licensed for administration to companion animals, what individual vaccine technologies offer, and what they don’t.

2:30-3:00pm BREAK

3:00-5:00pm - Iowa Rabies Awareness Challenge -The “Must Know” Issues - Dr. Richard Ford Co-Presented with Dr. Andrew Hennenfent – State Public Health Veterinarian for Iowa
Rabies vaccine is the ONLY vaccine among the various biologics used in clinical practice that is regulated under State (and/or local) law.  And…it is the responsibility of every licensed veterinarian to practice within the context of law when managing patients with respect to rabies and rabies vaccination.  This interactive, scenario-based presentation has been developed to challenge participating veterinarians and staff on LEGAL & REGULATORY issues in Iowa directly impacting decisions made in companion animal practice.

Practice Management Morning Session - Sponsored by R2 Financial Strategies
Room 275

Josh Ervasti, CFP®, CEPA®
8:30am-Noon - Life Beyond Your Practice: Building the Personal Plan Your Money and Practice Are Meant to Serve     – BREAK from 10:00-10:30am
Most veterinarians spend years building a practice before asking a critical question: What is this all meant to serve? Explore how identity, purpose, financial planning, and ownership decisions work together to create fulfillment today while preparing for future transitions, opportunities, and a meaningful life beyond the practice.

LUNCH Noon-1:30pm

Wellness Afternoon Session
Room 275

Dr. Amy Grimm
1:30-5:00pm - The Missing Piece Between Making the Plan and Building the Life: Essential Tools for a Fulfilling Career - 
BREAK from 3:00-3:30pm
You chose this profession because you care deeply. That same drive may be costing you everything outside of it. Learn the biology behind burnout, the path to purpose and fulfillment, and practical tools for a career and a life that actually fit.
This session is designed to meet every stage of a veterinary career:

• Early career professionals who are forming their professional identity, building their habits, and want to shape a sustainable career before the patterns set in
• Mid-career veterinarians whose career looks successful from the outside, but who wonder why they don't have time to actually live their life — or who are experiencing the early signs of chronic stress, disconnection, or creeping burnout but haven't had the language or framework to understand what is happening
• Late-career practice owners preparing for exit who built their vision this morning and are now wondering how they are going to build a life once the practice is no longer the center of it
• Any veterinary professional who has ever known exactly what they needed to do — and still couldn't make themselves do it.

This session is not a wellness talk. It is not about self-care, slowing down, or adding something else to your already full plate. It is a science-based, skills-forward workshop that explains, in language that will make sense to a clinically trained brain, why high-achieving veterinary professionals keep working harder than is sustainable, why the life they want keeps getting pushed to "someday," and what to actually do about it. Attendees will leave with a working understanding of their own nervous system, a framework for why their patterns exist, and concrete tools they can use the following week, at work and at home.

Bovine  - Morning Session Sponsored by Best BioSecurity
Room 250-252

8:30-10:00am - “Practice Tips” Panel Discussion/Forum 
   -Practice Tips to Save Yourself Time - Dr. Tom Hansen
   -TBD - Dr. Callie Garoutte
   -How to Deal With High Risk Cattle - Dr. Jack Johnson
   -Tips for Umbilical Ultrasound: what to look for and when to treat - Dr. Sarah Cuneo
   -Streamlining Electronic Health Papers - Dr. Austin Ashbacher

10:00-10:30am – BREAK

10:30-11:30am – Infertility in Beef Cattle & Bovine Abortion Diagnostics: A Practical Case-Based Approach - Drs. Grant Dewell & Chris Siepker
Diagnostic approaches to infertility/open cows in beef herds. Determining management, environmental and infectious causes of infertility.

11:30am-Noon - Bovine Research Grant Update - Dr. Sara Chaplin
Update on the Iowa Cow-Calf Herd Performance Benchmarking Project

LUNCH Noon – 1:30pm

1:30-2:30pm - Selecting and Interpreting Milk Quality Diagnostics - Dr. Michelle Buckley
Choosing the appropriate diagnostics for every milk quality investigation.

2:30-3:00pm BREAK

3:00-4:00pm - Digging into Milk Quality: A Case Discussion - Dr. Michelle Buckley
Follow me through a real life milk quality challenge!

4:00-5:00pm - On-Farm Milk Culture: What a Vet Needs to Know - Dr. Michelle Buckley
The pros and cons of using the Minnesota Easy Culture tri-plate system and how to navigate them.

Hot Topic Morning Session 
Room 260-262

Dr. Mike McClenahan
8:30-9:30am - Laughter Is a Clinical Skill: The Science of Humor, Connection, and the One-Team Approach
This session covers the business benefits of improved communication throughout the clinical setting and the use of virtuous humor to create connections that benefit clients, patients, and the veterinary team. Improved client communication has real-world health and financial impacts. Creating genuine connections with clients and the veterinary team is the primary goal of improved communication. The use of humor is one of the most powerful yet underutilized tools we have to make those connections. Participants will learn a team-based framework for clinical communication that places the animal at the center of all interactions, and will be introduced to Dr. Mike McClenahan's Three Rules of Virtuous Humor (Kind, Authentic, Professional) as a practical guide for incorporating humor safely and effectively in the clinical setting.

9:30-10:00am – BREAK

10:00-11:00am - What Happened to This Cat? Using Story to Build Trust and Compliance
This session explores the use of narrative and storytelling as clinical communication tools in the veterinary setting. Stories create connection, build trust, and move clients toward compliance in ways that data and clinical argument alone cannot. Participants will learn how to elicit their clients' full stories — and why interrupting too early costs them diagnostic accuracy and client trust — as well as how to craft and deliver their own clinical stories to build credibility, demonstrate genuine motivation, and overcome client resistance.

11:00am-Noon - Try It, Fix It, Keep It: A Workshop in Clinical Humor and Storytelling 
This interactive workshop applies the frameworks introduced in Sessions 1 and 2 to real-world clinical humor and storytelling. Participants will evaluate and refine actual exam room jokes and clinical stories using Dr. Mike's Three Rules of Virtuous Humor (Kind, Authentic, Professional) as a practical assessment framework. The session is designed to end on laughter. Participants leave with at least one refined joke or story ready to use in clinic.

Veterinary Technician
Room 167-179

8:30-9:30am - ECG Review- Lori Moran, VTS
How to record and read that line. Practice diagnosing that rhythm.

9:30-10:30am - Common Anesthetic Complications- Stacie Madson-Whittaker, VTS
The objective of this presentation is to educate fellow technicians as to what the common anesthetic complications are and physiologic parameters that lead one to treat these complications. Recognizing complications and what effects they have on the patient’s ability to maintain homeostasis allows for an understanding of the necessity for prompt treatment. Included in this presentation is a brief summary of the altered physiology of the body systems caused by general anesthesia. Also included are the side-effects of common pre-medications, induction agents and inhalant anesthetics. This presentation goes on to contain the normal physiologic parameters under general anesthesia and consequences of common anesthetic complications.
Common Anesthetic Complications
1. Overview of General Anesthesia
2. Effects of Anesthetic Medications
a. Pre-medications
b. Induction agents
c. Inhalants
3. Anesthetist’s Responsibility
4. Cardiovascular Complications
5. Ventilatory Complications
6. Complications with Oxygenation
7. Temperature Complications
8. Conclusions

10:30-11:00am BREAK

11:00am-Noon - When Lymphoma Walks Into the ER - Lisa Foster, VTS
This session explores how lymphoma presents in the ER and what technicians can do in the critical first moments. Topics include anatomic variants, clinical urgency, technician roles in triage, diagnostics, stabilization, and recognition of complications such as tumor lysis syndrome and gastrointestinal involvement.

LUNCH Noon-1:30pm

1:30-2:30pm - Emergency Triage of the Poisoned Patient - Dr. Jennifer Hopkins
A general overview of how to approach poisoning cases on initial presentation, including stabilization of life-threatening signs, history taking essentials, a review of fast-acting and immediately life-threatening toxins, and a overview of diagnostic tests and procedures to be aware of for poisoning cases.

2:30-3:30 pm - Decontamination – Things We’ve Learned - Dr. Jennifer Hopkins
Things We’ve Learned:  Discussion of methods of decontamination with indications and methods for oral, ocular, and dermal routes of exposure.  Contraindications and complications with common decontamination methods will be covered.  Additionally, less common forms of decontamination, such as intralipid therapy and extracorporeal elimination, will be touched on.

3:30-4:00pm BREAK

4:00-5:00pm - Common Household Hazards - Dr. Jennifer Hopkins
An overview of “good” toxins with minimal effects, “bad” toxins with more significant signs, “the edible” with food-based toxic concerns, and “the helpful” with over the counter and prescription medications commonly found in households.  Symptoms and treatment for these toxins will be covered.