I began my veterinary career as an equine intern in private practice in Victoria, Australia. After realising my wish to become a radiologist, I worked in a referral small animal hospital in Melbourne for 2 years. I was accepted into a four year joint American and European radiology residency programme at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the end of my residency, I became a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Radiology and of the European College of Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging. Subsequently, I had a lecturer position at the University of Zürich before returning to Ireland as an Assistant Professor at University College Dublin. I am also a teleradiology consultant for VetCT. My areas of particular interest are small animal gastrointestinal CT and musculoskeletal ultrasound, CT and MRI.

At university, Hester McAllister was the one who started my interest in radiology and in equine and small animal practice I realised the utility of diagnostic imaging in the workup of cases. There is always something to learn, whether it is the physics of MRI or trying to use new methods to characterise CT nasal tumours. I enjoy teaching students that imaging can yield more than they think and that as veterinary surgeons we have the skills and knowledge to tease out the more tricky cases using imaging as part of the process.

I think that like ultrasound in the past, CT and MRI are becoming more and more available to general practitioners. The possibility to image our patients quickly and often under sedation means a better level of care and hopefully a chance at a better outcome. I do think that we need to also maintain our skills in radiography and ultrasound as these modalities have their place in answering our clinical questions as part of the workup of the patient.

I am looking forward to discussing methods or ideas that people might find tricky and to help make imaging less confusing and more useful in practice. 

I hope that people will have a better understanding of the process involved in imaging the thorax and ultrasound. In radiology, we don’t always have a definitive diagnosis by the end of a study but as part of the bigger picture, we can put the case together. Imaging can guide further tests to rule in or out our list of differentials. Another hope is that the delegates may make informed decisions of when to send a patient for a CT or MRI study.