The Section for Veterinary Anaesthesia and Pain Therapy of the Vetsuisse-Faculty / Bern, proposes a residency training programme recognized by the European College of Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia (ECVAA). After a 3-year training, you will be able to sit the examination to become a certified European Specialist in Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia (Dip. ECVAA). The training programme includes a very large clinical experience in Anaesthesia and peri-operative Pain Therapy rotating throughout our clinics for Small Domestic Animals, Horses and Cattle. We also offer a large range of procedures for specific Pain Therapy. Our team also works in strong cooperation with the Emergency and Critical Care unit. Additionally, practice for laboratory and exotic animal species is organized in cooperation with other university and professional institutions. Besides its main clinical duty, the resident is involved in scientific research activities to at least fulfill requirements from the ECVAA (3 case reports, 1 original article as main author, 1 scientific cooperation). Our team regularly sits together for Journal Club, Case Discussion, Topic Round and organization meetings.

To read articles online, submit your manuscript, or find out more, visit Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-2995> on Wiley Online Library
The objectives of the standard ECVAA residency training programme are

• To be an active member within a clinical team at a veterinary hospital
• To reach high level of knowledge (very large amount of theory to learn) and skills in Veterinary Anaesthesia, Perioperative and Chronic Pain therapy, and Critical Care to prepare for the examinations of the ECVAA, in the perspective of a further career as Specialist of Veterinary Anaesthesia and Critical Care with high standard.
• To develop teaching and communication skills within hospital organization.
• To develop clinical and scientific writing skills required to write up clinical case reports for publication in peer-reviewed international journals.
• To experience an introduction to clinical research and to complete at least one clinically-based research project (planning, realization, results collection and analysis, writing, publishing, and reporting in a congress).
• Any interested person is strongly encouraged to visit the ECVAA website and read the Policies and Procedures related to the resident training programme, as well as taking directly contact with us for particularities of our unit.

Previous Residents in Anaesthesia and Analgesia at Bern

N. Jäggin-Schmucker 1994-1999
C. Spadavecchia  1998-2001
S. Wenger  2000-2003
A. Bergadano  2000-2003
I. Mosing (alt.)  2001-2003
I. Iff   2001-2004
O. Levionnois  2002-2005
S. Nannaronne (alt.) 2002-2004
P. Larenza  2002-2005
L. Zilberstein (alt.) 2003-2005
S. Axiak   2004-2007
C. Peterbauer  2004-2007
H. Rohrbach  2005-2008
K. Pieper (alt.)  2005-2008
C. Adami  2007-2010
K. Veres  2008-2011
N. Romagnoli (alt.) 2008-2010
A. Haga (alt.)  2010-2011
A. Lervik (alt.)  2010-2011
U. Morath  2010-
D. Casoni  2011-
V. Marolf  2012-

Details on the Training programme

a) Schedule for the three/four years

Year 1.

• Gain experience in large and small animal anaesthesia and critical care
• Incorporate Night duty
• Improve teaching and communication skills by participation to veterinary student clinical rotations, resident seminars and journal club meetings
• Enroll in the AVA and register for European Diploma examination
• Start Case LogBook
• Prepare/Start a clinical research project
• If required, prepare Dr.Med.Vet thesis

Year 2.

• Intensive duty in clinical anaesthesia and critical care in all clinics
• Overtake instructor function for veterinary students
• Advance Case LogBook and Case reports
• Finalize own research project and participate in other projects
• If required, submit Dr.Med.Vet thesis

Year 3.

• Develop Instructor function for students, visitors and junior Resident in the clinics
• Contribute to the organisation of the Anaesthesia Section (Material, Teaching, meetings…)
• Contribute to representation of the Anaesthesia Section towards outside (Congresses, Seminars, Continuous Education, Publication…)
• Complete the ECVAA credentials to sit the examination

Year 4.

• The fourth year is facultative and meant to support the residents to stay within an academic frame to prepare for the ECVAA/ACVA exam. Within this year, the resident is expected to perform clinical anaesthesia and teaching for about 60% of the time and study for the remaining time.

b) Anaesthesia clinical service, including emergency and intensive care
For standard residencies, approximately 60% of time (70% during the first year, 60% during the second year and 50% during the third year) will be spent in the clinics to provide clinical anaesthesia service and instruct veterinary students. The resident is also involved in decisions for critical care cases. Clinical duty also includes participation to the out-of-hours emergency service as a primary duty during the first (small animal hospital) and second residency year (equine hospital), and as on-call anaesthesia back-up (all clinics) together with the Diplomates during the third year.
For standard residencies, 40% of time will be allocated for learning time, research projects, internal and external rotations, attending conferences or other relevant courses, and holidays (5 weeks per year plus 1 week over Christmas/New Year).

c) Rotations in other related disciplines
The veterinary hospital of Bern offers contact with European Specialists in many disciplines (intensive care, diagnostic imaging, neurology, ophthalmology, internal medicine and surgery (including neurosurgery), in both large and small animals…) and week rotations are encouraged during off-clinics periods.

d) External clinical anaesthesia rotations
All our residents are also supported to visit other hospitals, both veterinary (particularly for sectors poorly represented at our faculty) and human, as well as external institutions dealing with experimental and exotic/wild animals.

e) Research
The resident normally spends 5-10 weeks per year for clinically based research project. It is expected that the resident will be involved in research projects from the beginning to guarantee valuable experience of the necessary processes.