Fellows of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) both new and established gathered in London on Thursday 27 November 2025 for Fellowship Day 2025, an annual event established in 2016 to celebrate the learned society and its contributions.
The event, which took place at One Great George Street in Westminster, saw some 52 veterinary surgeons being welcomed to the Fellowship, having become Fellows via four different routes – 31 for meritorious contributions to clinical practice; 18 for meritorious contributions to the profession; two for meritorious contributions to veterinary knowledge; and one for Fellowship by thesis.
The presentation of the new Fellowships by Fellowship Chair Dr Niall Connell FRCVS was followed by an address from RCVS President Professor Tim Parkin FRCVS. Tim spoke about his own circuitous journey both into the veterinary profession and into the Fellowship, having been unsuccessful in his first attempt to become a Fellow.
He used his speech to talk about the value of mentorship – of making sure you pass your learning and experience on to others – and specifically highlighted the Fellowship’s own mentorship scheme.
He said: “When we become Fellows, we do more than simply swap our MRCVS for an FRCVS – we are showing our dedication to promoting scientific excellence, furthering professional skills and practice and invigorating a curiosity for innovation - as well as undertaking activities that enrich public discourse about the importance of veterinary science to everyone. In order to do that mentorship is key. Please reflect on how each of us can inspire and influence those who will do better than us in the future.
“Many Fellowship candidates reach out to the Fellowship to seek advice regarding their application, and we are now seeking more Fellows who would be able to offer some time to assist prospective applicants.
“This could include, for example, offering general guidance in areas such as routes into Fellowship, or more specific queries such as how much information to include in an application. If this is something that you would be interested in supporting, please do contact the Fellowship Team directly.”
Keynote speech
There was then the keynote speech by Matthew Baylis, Emeritus Professor of Livestock and One Health at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, titled ‘Future threats: how vector-borne diseases of animals are responding to a rapidly-changing world’.
In his speech Professor Baylis spoke about he had dedicated his career to the study of vector-borne diseases with a One Health approach that sees human, animal and environmental health as interconnected. He said that, while the battle against vector-borne diseases over the past few decades can be seen as a great success, new challenges were now emerging as global movements of people and goods mean that diseases and their vectors can travel, and climate change means these vectors can establish themselves in new places.
He gave examples of the rapid spread of arboviruses into parts of northern Europe as climate change means the vector animals have widened their geographical spread and even slightly higher temperatures increase the risk of transmission. He said that there was also the risk of novel viruses emerging with climate change, giving the example of Schmallenberg virus.
Professor Baylis concluded by saying technological solutions have a big role to play in tackling vector-borne diseases with new vaccines, drugs and insecticides, as well as new approaches to disease control.
Fellows of the Future competition
After a lunch break Fellowship Day reconvened for its Fellows of the Future competition where three undergraduate veterinary students are given the opportunity to share their research with the Fellowship.
The three students and their presentations this year were:
• Aine O’Brien, University of Glasgow, Diagnostic accuracy of a Brix refractometer to estimate porcine colostrum quality
• Rebecca Scott, University of Cambridge, The face and body location of tumours in Tasmanian devils infected with Devil Facial Tumour 1 (DFT1)
• Yasmin Crowe, University of Nottingham, Investigating the confidence levels of students at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science when communicating with clients who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Each student was given five minutes to present, with a member of the Fellowship judging panel having two minutes to ask follow-up questions.
Yasmin was judged to have given the best presentation and received a £200 National Book Token while the other two students were both highly commended and received £100 National Book Tokens.
Afternoon workshops
The final part of the day were two parallel workshop sessions in which delegates were invited to give their expertise and feedback on two big animal health and welfare issues.
Professor Christianne Glossop FRCVS, former Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales, chaired a session on the veterinary role in surveillance and disease response. Questions considered by those attending included how vets can do more to encourage animal owners and keepers to report any unusual symptoms to their vet and considering what challenges owners, farmers, veterinarians and wildlife observers face when it comes to reporting symptoms.
Dr Adam Mugford FRCVS chaired a session led by Jim Green, the Director of Operations at the British Animal Rescue and Trauma Care Association (BARTA) about the veterinary role in emergency response.
Jim, spoke about his close working relationship with veterinary surgeons as a firefighter, but said that there was an overall disconnect between the UK’s strong legal and cultural traditions around animal welfare, and how non-disease emergency situations were responded to and planned for.
He said that animal welfare considerations should be part of the National Risk Register which would, in turn, mean that there would be a recognised duty of care for animals amongst emergency responders, a better understanding of the role of veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses in emergency response, and support for animal welfare in terms of post-emergency support.
As a practical exercise, Jim asked the Fellows at the session to think up practical incident cards that could be used by those responding to an emergency involving small animals. This included details such as lists of equipment they might need, for example, for handling the animals and giving them immediate emergency care as well as guidance on handling and treating small animals for non-veterinary emergency responders.
Videos from the day will be made available in due course here.