A nutritional assessment is one of the five vital assessments veterinary healthcare teams should complete during each patient exam. Veterinary professionals rely on pet owners for insight into home feeding habits to properly assess the animal’s health. Those conversations can often be complicated when clients make nutrition decisions based on misinformation saturating today’s market.
The North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) and Hill’s Pet Nutrition will host the level up: nutrition summit, on Thursday 16 June, beginning at 6pm EST, where veterinary professionals will learn about new techniques to perform more successful nutrition exams, to better educate pet owners, and more effectively engage clients in creating and maintaining nutritional health plans for their pets. While the summit is geared for the entire veterinary team, it also includes content specifically designed to help veterinary nurses assume leadership roles in nutrition education within the practice. Registration can be accessed on the website.
“Nutrition is important to an animal’s health but pet owners, while well-intended, often get misinformation that may lead to poor diet choices for their pet,” said NAVC Chief Veterinary Officer Dana Varble, DVM, CAE. “That is why nutrition should be assessed at every exam so the veterinary team can help sort through the plethora of information that’s out there and, together, develop the strategy for food and treats that best contribute to the animal’s health.”
The summit includes three interactive sessions designed to help veterinary teams incorporate a nutrition assessment into each patient visit and to effectively educate pet owners to maximize the animal’s health and longevity:
- A modern team approach to nutrition recommendations – Led by Jennifer Hull, DVM, MS and Vicky Ograin, MBA, RVT, VTS (Nutrition), this session will focus on the importance of nutrition assessments and how team members can simplify the conversation so it resonates with pet owners
- 4PAWS and teamwork: A pathway to success in nutritional recommendations – Michael T. Robbins, DVM, DACVIM (Nutrition) will demonstrate how to incorporate the acronym 4PAWS into each patient visit: purpose of visit, allow client input, use warmth and empathy, and solutions. Robbins will explain why it is beneficial to communicate with pet owners in this fashion
- Veterinary nurse nutrition consults: Helping clients with diet choices – Credentialed veterinary nurses are highly-skilled and educated professionals and can be great resources for delivering the best nutritional information for pets. Kara Burns MS, MEd, LVT, VTS (Nutrition), VTS-H (Internal Medicine, Dentistry) will explain how veterinary nurses/technicians should promote clinical nutrition and demonstrate in-clinic behaviours that benefit their patients, clients, and practices.
“The free level pp: nutrition summit is another example of the NAVC’s commitment to providing all veterinary professionals access to lifelong learning that benefits the animal healthcare team and the pets they care for,” said NAVC CEO Gene O’Neill.
The virtual series from the NAVC’s VirtualXP division launched in October 2021. Through VirtualXP, the NAVC provides a comprehensive portfolio of virtual learning and events customized to individual learning preferences. VirtualXP complements the NAVC’s industry-leading in-person events and includes interactive virtual summits, live webinars and the microlearning videos series VetFolio Bytes. All VirtualXP education is offered exclusively through the NAVC’s online learning platform.
