6^th Global Veterinary Summit

Biography

Biography: Mushtaq Memon

Abstract

Integrative veterinary (IVM) medicine has been described as the combination of complementary and alternative therapies with conventional care and is guided by the best available evidence. Veterinarians frequently encounter questions about complementary and alternative veterinary medicine (CAVM) in practice and the general public has demonstrated increased interest in these areas for both human and animal health. Consequently, veterinary students should receive adequate exposure to the principles, theories and current knowledge supporting or refuting such techniques. The proposed curriculum guidelines would broadly introduce students to the objective evaluation of new veterinary treatments while increasing their preparation for responding to questions about IVM in clinical practice. Such a course should be evidence based, unbiased and unaffiliated with any particular CAVM advocacy or training group. All IVM courses will need routine updating as new information becomes available and institutions without faculty trained in these areas should consider recruitment of outside speakers to provide education in this area when it is not logistically and financially feasible to recruit permanent faculty in these areas. Controversies regarding IVM and CAVM should be addressed within the course and throughout the entire curriculum. Instructional honesty regarding the uncertainties in this emerging field is critical. The author hope that increased training of our future colleagues will demonstrate the openness to new ideas that characterizes the scientific method and a willingness to pursue and incorporate evidence based medicine in clinical practice with all therapies, including those presently regarded as integrative, complementary or alternative.