About us
ESVPS is a not-for-profit organisation which was set up in 2003 by a group of likeminded veterinarians with the principal objective to provide attainable, balanced qualifications for veterinary practitioners working in full-time practice. The General Practitioner Certificates and Nurses Certificates were designed to meet the needs of busy veterinary practitioners and nurses wanting to gain a postgraduate qualification without having to take excessive time out of their busy working lives.
Since the launch of the first General Practitioner Certificates in 2004, over 950 veterinary surgeons have achieved an ESVPS General Practitioner Certificate in one of the sixteen subjects available. The Nurses Certificates were added in 2009 and 80 nurses have gained a Nurses Certificate in one of the five subjects available.
Whilst the General Practitioner Certificate is not a specialist qualification it can be used as a stepping stone to higher education within the profession. Some successful candidates have used the General Practitioner Certificate qualification to go on to complete an RCVS Cert(AVP) and a few have gone on to complete a Diploma in their specialist area.
To date, examinations have been held in the UK, Norway, Italy, Southern Ireland, Spain, Denmark and Portugal and we will be holding the first General Practitioner Certificates in France later this year.
Who are ESVPS?
Directors:
Dr Anthony Hunter Andrews BVetMed, PhD, DipECBHM, DipECSRHM, FRSM, FBIAC, MRCVS
RCVS Recognised Specialist in Cattle Health and Production
European Veterinary Specialist in Bovine Health Management
After graduation from the Royal Veterinary College, he spent the next five and a half
years working in mixed veterinary practice. In 1970 he was awarded the Royal Smithfield
Club Scholarship tenable in the Department of Animal Husbandry and Hygiene, the Royal Veterinary
College. His work involved the study of teeth, particularly in cattle, and their development
in health and disease and was awarded a PhD. He spent nearly six years at the Meat and Livestock
Commission (MLC), initially as a Veterinary Officer and he was promoted to Senior Veterinary
Officer in 1977. In 1979 Dr. Andrews took up appointment as Senior Lecturer in Farm Animal Medicine
at the Royal Veterinary College where he remained for seventeen years. Besides disease, he has worked and written
on management, nutrition, economics, welfare, preventive medicine and farm assurance in the major farm species.
He has been responsible for the publication of over 130 scientific papers, as well as many articles on
veterinary matters in the agricultural, veterinary and lay press. He has written about 13 books in various editions.
From January 1997 he has subsequently been acting as an independent veterinary consultant.
He is regularly visiting farms to provide support for practising veterinary surgeons, farmers, and agricultural
organisations. He has acted as a referee for many veterinary journals. He has examined at Edinburgh Veterinary School,
Dublin Veterinary College, Cambridge Veterinary School, Royal Veterinary College, and for the RCVS and he has been assessing
parts of the course at the Nottingham veterinary School. He has organised and participated in many CPD courses
in Britain and other countries. Currently he is a Board Member of the European College of Bovine Health Management.
John Houlton MA, VetMB, DVR, DSAO, MRCVS, DECVS
European Veterinary Specialist in Surgery
John Houlton qualified from the University of Cambridge in 1970 having gained a 1st Class Natural Science Degree in 1967. After 6 years in practice, he returned to Cambridge as University Assistant Surgeon. In 1980 he became University Surgeon, remaining in that post until 1997. He then joined the Veterinary Defence Society as a Claims Consultant until 2010. He has extensive experience of being an examiner, having acted as an external examiner for several UK Veterinary Colleges, having examined for the RCVS Certificate and Diplomas in small animal orthopaedics and surgery, RCVS Fellowships and for the European College of Veterinary Surgeons.
He has a wide number of contacts in Europe and has been President of the British Veterinary Orthopaedic Association (BVOA), AO/Vet International, the European Society of Veterinary Orthopaedics and Traumatology (ESVOT) and the European College of Veterinary Surgeons (ECVS). He is an RCVS Diplomate in Veterinary Radiology and in Small Animal Orthopaedics, and a Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Surgeons. He is currently European Associate Editor for Veterinary Surgery, a panellist for the BVA/KC hip and elbow dysplasia schemes and a European Specialist in Veterinary Surgery. In 1985 he was awarded the BSAVA Simon Award for outstanding contributions to Veterinary Surgery. He has published extensively and has co-edited five text books. Beyond veterinary medicine, his major interest is gundogs, and working Labradors in particular.
Kay Watson
Kay Watson trained as a veterinary nurse in a mixed practice in Norfolk. In 1992 she joined the International League
for the Protection of Horses (ILPH) as PA to the Directors or Field Operations and Equine Rehabilitation at their Head Office
in Norfolk. She went on to spend two years working as a consultant advisor for the ILPH in Cyprus working with the
Cypriot Government to improve the standards of equine welfare. In 1998 she moved to London where she worked in the Equine Department
of the Royal Veterinary College, before joining Improve CPD in 1999 as Business Manager. In 2002, she undertook a seven-month
placement at the Equine Clinical Research Unit, University of Melbourne, Werribee, Australia, completing a research project
investigating shin soreness of the third metacarpal bone in young Thoroughbred racehorses. Kay joined ESVPS in 2004 as
Director and Company Secretary. She has published two papers on the third metacarpal bone length and skeletal asymmetry
in the Thoroughbred racehorse. Her interests are horses and working dogs.
ESVPS Country Representatives:
Sandra Attwood (Koch) Dr med vet, MRCVS
Sandra graduated in Veterinary Medicine in 2002 from Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich, Germany.
Following her Veterinary study’s she did her doctoral thesis for 3 years at the Department of Comparative
Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, LMU Munich, Germany with the title “Investigations on the seroprevalence
of Fasciola hepatica in Bavarian dairy cattle”. The thesis was done in cooperation with Novartis
and the Tiergesundheitsdienst e.V.
After gaining experience in tropical and parasitology medicine in Germany, Sandra spent a year travelling in Asia,
New Zealand and Australia where she worked for different organisations. In New Zealand she also presented her
Doctoral thesis at the WAAVP Congress in Christchurch in 2005.
Coming back from her gap year she worked for a busy mixed practice in Ireland from August 2006 to August 2007.
This was followed by employment in a small and exotic animal surgery in the south west of England where she
currently works part time after having her baby daughter in 2010.
Her hobbies are hiking, scuba diving and horse riding.
Diogo Carreira
In 2004 Diogo did a curricular apprenticeship of 6 months in sports medicine and
surgery with race horses in Macau Jockey Club, Macao (China).
After graduating in 2005 at Veterinary School of Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro,
Portugal, he attended a one year internship at the same institution in large animals and equine medicine and surgery.
In 2007 he worked in Meat Hygiene Inspection in the UK, most of the time in Scotland.
Back in Portugal in 2008, he worked as a small animal practitioner in Coimbra.
From November 2008 to April 2011 he developed his activities as an Animal Health Veterinary,
performing official campaigns of control and erradication of tuberculosis and brucelosis as
well as animal identification and blue tongue vaccination in ruminants for Regional Government of Cantábria, Spain.
Currently, he is the representative of ESVPS for Spain and Portugal.
Special interests: traveling, sea related activities, equines and ruminants.
Academic Board:
The Academic Board comprises thirty members who are Diplomates of UK, European or USA Veterinary Colleges, or are similarly qualified or recognised specialists who are active in clinical practice. The Academic Board sets and evaluates all course work, formulates the final examination, reviews the conduct of examination and determines the final examination results.
Accreditation Committee:
To achieve ESVPS accreditation a course provider must provide/fulfil the set criteria, which is evaluated by the accreditation committee. Please refer to the accreditation page for further details.
Validation Review Panel:
This is not a formal committee of ESVPS but is an integral part of the examination process. The Validation Review Panel is responsible for reviewing and benchmarking all submitted examination questions. Members of the Validation Review Panel are General Practitioner Certificate holders and academics.
ESVPS offers sixteen General Practitioner Certificates (GPCerts). Please click below for further details of the subjects available.
Further information and list of exam subjects >
ESVPS offers five Nurses Certificates (NCerts). Please click below for further details of the subjects available.
ESVPS, PO Box 207, Yelverton, Devon, PL19 1DJ, United Kingdom
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