Abdominal wounds had been opened and closed for the past eight hours and the sharps containers beside the operating tables were starting to fill with used needles and scalpel blades.

I was coming to the end of my demonstrations of common suturing techniques and despite my feeble attempts to engage my students with the application of some basic advancement flaps, I noticed that, one by one, they were drawn in by the far more engaging presentation of my colleague, Alex Bogdan Vitalaru (pictured right), next to us, who had started talking about fluid rates and maintenance doses for critically ill patients, while making use of an unused plaster board at the new, but yet unfinished, veterinary hospital building – which we were using as a venue – to pen down his calculations.

There was no doubt that here was a far more skilled lecturer at work and, declaring defeat, I decided – together with my group – to join the fast-gathering crowd, for the final 15 minutes of a day of clinical workshops.

Complete success

Despite a lot of unexpected challenges, not only this day, the whole event had been a complete success.

Just a year ago, I had arrived in Tirana with my backpack on a shaky, at times crammed, run-down overland bus, knowing not a soul in the capital of this Mediterranean country.

Network

Using the Federation of Companion Animal Veterinary Associations (FECAVA) network of veterinary colleagues and friends in the neighbouring countries, I eventually got in touch with Ilir Kusi, Dritan Laci and Enstela Vokshi – three dedicated companion animal practitioners from Tirana. Over dinner, they explained that no small animal veterinary association exists in Albania, but that unsurprisingly the demand for continuing education and knowledge gain was huge. It soon became apparent that everything just needed an initial spark.

Within a few weeks, a basic constitution was set up, an organisation established and a board appointed.

Drawing on the help of BSAVA president Carl Gorman and the always helpful team at Woodrow House, Albanian colleagues were able to tune in to a BSAVA webinar and as a result of this, Nao and Patrick Hensel, dermatology specialists from Basel in Switzerland, booked their flights to Tirana to provide a whole day of dermatology CPD before the end of the year.

In September, our Albanian friends attended the joint FECAVA/WSAVA Congress in Lisbon and were granted WSAVA observer status.

In the meantime, planning had already started to gather equipment and funding to organise a two-day continuing education event including both lectures and practical workshops in June of this year, to cover a range of different areas of companion animal care.

Paul Cooper, former European Veterinary Dental Society president, with whom I had already travelled to Yerevan in Armenia a few years previously, was once again happy to follow me to Albania to talk about veterinary dentistry and to run a wet lab on the subject.

It would again require him to modify a locally sourced (usually old Russian made) compressor to drive his dentistry equipment.

The same response I received from Alastair Hotston Moore, covering soft tissue surgery, and from Alex Bogdan Vitalaru, talking about internal medicine, nephrology and about the placement of all sorts of tubes and catheters into critically ill patients.

Seasoned lecturers

All of them are seasoned lecturers in their fields and if not engaged with clinical work, they are more likely to be found in the departure lounge of an international airport heading for a veterinary conference than at home with their families. Yet all of them were happy to join me on this adventure and to provide their knowledge on a pro bono basis.

While the BSAVA and FECAVA covered most of our travel expenses, our Albanian colleagues were looking after us (extremely well) during our stay in Tirana. Veterinary equipment providers required just a little nudge to part with necessary gear and disposable materials, like suture material or catheters, so that eventually two suitcases full of books and equipment travelled with us to the Balkan.

However, as always with these events, something doesn’t work out or goes wrong at the last minute…

Unfortunately, Paul had to bail out due to a serious family issue, but although this meant that we had to cancel (in fact, just postpone) the dentistry workshop, both Alasdair and Alex were more than happy to bridge the gaps in the scientific programme with additional lectures of their fields of expertise.

The venue for the workshops – a new veterinary referral hospital that was supposed to be ready by now – turned out to be still a building site. Here, a clear list of requirements, two days of hard work by the whole clinic team and possibly a hint of Alemannic pushiness got the place ready just in time.

Then Alex contacted us on the night before the event, informing us that his flight from Bucharest had been affected by a hail storm and that he was uncertain to make it in time.

Luckily, with soaking wet trousers (which is what you get when you book a front row seat with an Irish low cost carrier), he arrived at 1am at Tirana airport.

When at 9am the following morning just 10 delegates had turned up (instead of the 30-plus registered colleagues) at the excellent conference facilities of the Intercontinental Hotel in the centre of Tirana, all we had to do was, to enjoy another coffee, remind ourselves that we were not in Switzerland and sure enough, at 9:30am the room was filled with nearly 60 delegates.

From here onwards everything went swimmingly, with lectures on wound closure, abdominal surgery, stress-free feline consults and internal medicine.

The breaks between the lectures provided ample opportunities to engage with our colleagues from Albania and from neighbouring Kosovo and North Macedonia (who had travelled several hundred kilometres to attend the event) and to enjoy the view over Tirana’s central Skanderbeg Square and the rapidly changing skyline of the capital.

Starting the workshops the following day already at 8am proved to be less of a problem, with many delegates now keen to put their newly acquired knowledge into practice.

The day finished with the obligatory signing of the CPD certificates and the handing out of several veterinary manuals and volumes, provided courtesy of both the speakers and of the BSAVA. A final photo of the slightly drained, but happy lecturers and delegates on the roof of the new clinic building concluded our memorable visit to Tirana.

This memorable event was only made possible due to the generous financial or material support for the BSAVA, FECAVA, Eickemeyer, JAK Marketing, Vettrust and Zurich Vet School.

The article is based on a recent entry into the Blue Vet Diary, a regular personal account of the author, combining veterinary medicine and travelling (bluevetdiary.com).