The Veterinary Bioscience Institute (VBI) is an innovative company that is changing the future of experimental and veterinary surgical and biomethodology training. This training is required by law for the biomedical community in the European Union, and the United States, which includes industry, academia and nonprofit institutions. Training is also required by accreditation organizations for techn
ical and medical staff to keep their licensure in good standing, as well as re-enforce that the highest standard of practice is being implemented. VBI provides cost-effective and highly efficient surgical and biomethodology training programs, which meet regulatory and industry regulations and also fulfill continuing education requirements. We have developed a unique, comprehensive and objective competency assessment program and related scoring system that is an adaptation for the biomedical community of the validated system used in human medicine and surgery. In addition, VBI is the first educator for the biomedical community that successfully utilizes a validated human model for knowledge transfer: online surgical training followed by hands-on training. This method is further enhanced through the use of VBI’s objective, surgical competency assessment program. This comprehensive approach results in more competent surgeons, better surgical outcomes, improved animal welfare and better scientific data. In fact, VBI has the first publication in the laboratory animal field showing that their validated method of online surgical education equals live, hands on training. VBI is revolutionizing the standards of surgical excellence by introducing and validating innovations such as rodent laparoscopy, colonoscopy and thorascopy. These processes are major refinements to standard procedures, and VBI is incredibly proud to be leading the charge. Team members of VBI are heavily published in a variety of subject matter, and most are veterinarians with post doctoral degrees. VBI has become a permanent fixture as invited speakers at almost all national and international laboratory animal meetings, and our lectures are being cited in a variety of ways within the biomedical community. VBI also performs a number of hands-on workshops at these meetings which have received numerous accolades. While raising the bar on continuing education standards, VBI also focuses on the three R’s of reduction, replacement and refinement. VBI is revolutionizing continuing education for the biomedical community. VBI focuses on:
• Providing cost-effective and highly efficient surgical training programs which meet regulatory and industry requirements and also fulfill continuing education requirements.
• Developing new training and competency assessment methods for surgical training while upholding the highest standards.
• The availability of surgical training videos in various medias, supplying up-to date videos, creating descriptive and interactive videos, availability of custom videos, production of training material in timely fashion, and the provision of assistance and consulting on-site and long distance.
• Refining surgical techniques to
o Reduce animal use
o Replace use of larger species
o Reduce training and study expenses
• Elevating the standard of surgical training to benefit surgeons as well as their subjects
