Professor Dame Sally Davies will speak at this year’s Fellowship Day.

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) has awarded 34 veterinary surgeons with Fellowships in recognition of their contributions to the professions.

This year, 22 of the Fellowships recognised Meritorious Contributions to Clinical Practice (MCCP).

Six Fellowships recognised Meritorious Contributions to Knowledge (MCK) and six recognised Meritorious Contributions to the Profession (MCP).

Among the recipients of Fellowships is Fergus Allerton (MCCP), a veterinary surgeon and writer whose work is currently in confronting antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Also awarded a Fellowship is Dr Jonathan Heeney (MCK), whose work on zoonotic diseases contributed to studies into COVID-19 vaccinations.

The Fellowships will be formally welcomed at the Fellowship Day on Monday, 27 November at One Great George Street, Westminster.

Former chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies will be a guest speaker at the event, where she will deliver a talk entitled ‘One Health, One High-Level Meeting: the global movement on AMR’.

Dame Sally, who was appointed the UK’s special envoy on AMR in 2019, will discuss the need for innovation and collaborative action to tackle the global challenge of AMR. She will share the global action taking place ahead of the 2024 High-Level Meeting on AMR at the United Nations, and the role that all sectors play on the ground and at policy level.

She will also recommend key global opportunities, and the steps that local, national and global stakeholders can take to make further progress.

Dr Chris Tufnell FRCVS, current chair of the RCVS Fellowship and former RCVS president, said: “We are absolutely thrilled that Dame Sally will be talking to RCVS Fellows both new and established at our Fellowship Day. As a learned society, we recognise the importance of promoting scientific excellence, and using our collective knowledge to enrich the public discourse on scientific matters, and this is something that Dame Sally has done throughout her career as a public servant, author and broadcaster.

“Many congratulations also to our 34 new Fellows. Each one of them is an example of veterinary excellence, whether they came into the Fellowship through their contribution to clinical practice, through their advancement of veterinary knowledge, or through their contribution to the veterinary professions and wider society. Celebrations of this kind are a highlight of the year.

“I am sure they will all have something to add to our collective knowledge over the coming years as we continue to use our expertise to look at different areas of veterinary endeavour such as our latest research projects on Net Zero Surgery and Net Zero Veterinary Medicine.”

The full list of Fellowships can be found here.

Image (C) RCVS