Conversations around everyday ethical challenges in small animal practice (LVS25)

Every day in small animal veterinary practice we are faced with ethical challenges in our decision making. The decisions we make for animals, in partnership with their owners and carers, can have far-reaching consequences for everyone involved. Placing animal welfare at the centre of what we do, can conflict with contextualising care for individual owners and patients. Our recommendations can be clouded by our lack of expertise in specific areas of veterinary medicine, personal experiences and other biases. In this session, panellists from the charity sector, first opinion practice and referral practice will present and debate some ethically challenging cases and find out what you, the audience, thinks too.

• Recognise ethical challenges in everyday small animal veterinary cases.
• Understand the impacts of these challenges on all the stakeholders involved in the animal's care.
• Consider ways forward, including mitigating for the negative impacts on some stakeholders.

Chairperson

Liz Mullineaux, BVM&S DVM&S CertSHP FRCVS, Senior Vice President - BVA

Speakers

Caroline Allen, Chief Veterinary Officer - RSPCA

Peter Haggis, Clinical Director - Wilbury Vets, Hove

Gerry Polton, DipECVIM-CA (Oncology), Hospital Director - North Downs Specialist Referrals (specialist oncologist)

Presented at LVS 2025

Thursday, 20 November 2025, 09:15-10:15, BVA Congress