Abstract
JFMS
Early anniversary present for JFMS
The JFMS team is celebrating the news of the latest impact factor. Announced in June by Clarivate Analytics, which compiles the Journal Citations Reports (JCR) for over 11,500 journals, spanning more than 230 disciplines and 2.2 million scholarly articles, the 2017 impact factor has risen to 1.466, up from 1.131 in the previous year. The news has come as the team are preparing to mark the journal’s 20th anniversary in 2019. The impact factor is the highest since 2010, and the second highest since 2004, the year that JFMS first recorded an impact factor. It moves JFMS up the journal rankings in the JCR Veterinary Sciences list, where it currently enjoys a position of 42 out of 140 journals.
By looking at all the citation activity in a single calendar year, the impact factor represents a snapshot in time, providing transparency on what makes a journal influential and valuable.
Commenting on the journal’s achievement, the Editors, Andy Sparkes and Margie Scherk, remark: ‘Our primary goals are ensuring the journal meets its aim and is of real value to practising, veterinarians, and we are well aware that to be the natural platform for high-quality clinical studies contributing novel information in the important field of feline medicine and surgery, the journal needs a good impact factor. We are delighted with the news of the appreciable rise in the current impact factor and rating of JFMS. It reflects much hard work from all involved in producing the journal – and also, importantly, the quality of the editorial board and of our authors. We are hugely grateful to all who contribute their expertise as we strive to make JFMS a “best in class” clinical journal.’
JFMS and JFMS Open Reports awards presented in Sorrento
Kat Pankratz (left) and Nicola Council (right), winners of the JFMS Resident Best Paper Award and inaugural JFMS Open Reports Practitioner Best Paper Award, respectively. They were presented with their awards at the ISFM European Congress in Sorrento from Claire Bessant, Executive Editor for the sister journals (middle). For more information, visit award.jfms.com and award.jfmsopenreports.com
AAFP
2018 AAFP Conference partners
The AAFP would like to thank and recognize its amazing conference partners. With its 2018 conference taking place later this month, these relationships really do help to enrich and enhance the experience for attendees.
Special thanks go to long-standing partners, the
The AAFP is honored to have four new partners for 2018 – the
Instagram and social media
The AAFP is now on Instagram! This is allowing the AAFP to reach cat caregivers on a new platform and engage the cat-loving public with interesting and educational feline information. Check out the account at @CatFriendlyHomes.
In addition, the AAFP is proud to have seen its Facebook presence grow organically to over 30,000 followers.
One of the posts concerning safety for Independence Day had over 480 shares, but the most popular post was in honor of National Black Cat Day, with almost 1500 shares. Posts on the recent AAFP Feline Anesthesia Guidelines also reached nearly 70,000 people!
iCatCare
Recognising companies ‘thinking cat’
International Cat Care, the parent charity of ISFM, presented four ‘Easy to Give’ and three ‘Cat Friendly’ awards, as well as a special award for Innovations in Humane Cat Population Management, at its annual awards ceremony in London on July 13. A brief outline is provided below; for more information about the awards go to
Canine & Feline Sector Group endorse Declaration
The Canine & Feline Sector Group (CFSG), which is made up of influential organisations who advise on strategically important dog and cat health and welfare issues and standards in England, has endorsed iCatCare’s International Declaration of Responsibilities to Cats. Over 28,000 signatures have now been obtained in support of the Declaration. To read and sign the document, go to icatcare.org/declaration
2019 calendar
The iCatCare calendar, which for 2019 has the theme of ‘kittenhood’, is now available. Each photograph is a winning entry from the annual iCatCare photography competition. Funds raised from the calendar sales go towards iCatCare’s welfare work. The calendar is available to purchase for £7.50 + p&p at icatcare.org/shop
KHEDÌ congress
ISFM’s National Partner Kedi Hekimliği Derneği (KHEDÌ) will be holding its first congress on 5–7 December in Istanbul, Turkey. The theme is ‘feline fitness and fatness’ and includes talks from Elsa Beltran, Jolle Kirpensteijn and Hasan Sontas. For more information, or to register, visit: www.khedi2018.org
CFC
First Japanese university to become a CFC
The ISFM’s Cat Friendly Clinic (CFC) programme is a resource to reduce the stress of veterinary visits for cats, and to make treating and handling cats easier for veterinary staff. The programme is carried out on a global scale and an ever-growing number of clinics are becoming accredited under the scheme. Among them is Kagoshima University Veterinary Teaching Hospital (KUVTH), the first University in Japan to become a CFC. Here Yasuyuki Endo, Professor and Director of KUVTH, describes what this accreditation has meant to them.
Kagoshima Prefecture, where Kagoshima University Veterinary Teaching Hospital is based, has a long and unique history with cats. Nekogami Jinja (the Cat’s God Shrine), for example, can be found here, where, every year, huge crowds of cat lovers gather to have the names of cats that have passed away, become lost or been ill read out by the Shinto priests. Cats are still popular in this region today, and reflecting both a general increase in the feline population and the large percentage of cat-owning households in Kagoshima, we seem to have more feline patients than other Japanese university hospitals.
We believe that CFC accreditation is a very important milestone to provide better veterinary care for cats (and, yes, our current hospital director also loves cats!). Given Kagoshima University’s aim to become a European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE)-certified hospital, it was a very natural step to improve the environment for cats and meet the CFC’s global standard. A mission for the veterinary hospital is to provide better veterinary care and a cat friendly hospital environment is an important part of this.
It is well known that cats visit veterinary clinics less frequently than dogs, and we understand that this is often a result of cat owners wanting to protect their cats from previous fearful experiences at a clinic. Thus, it is essential to provide both the cat and its owner a friendly environment alongside a highly engaged team to reduce their stress.
CFC accreditation also helps us to provide an improved teaching environment for our students.
As a teaching hospital, we have a responsibility to help all students studying here to understand that cats are not small dogs and that specific care is needed for our feline patients and their owners. We also want our students to go on to be great ambassadors and share the cat friendly concept at their future places of employment.
We were fortunate that during the recent renovation of the hospital we were able to ensure cat friendly principles were incorporated. There is no big change in our daily veterinary care, but all members at the hospital understand and act more naturally based on the ‘cat’s point of view’, and this is a great change.
None of this could have been achieved by just one person and all staff need to be engaged. We set up a dedicated group of five veterinarians and nurses who met monthly while working towards this goal. Going forwards, we believe it is essential to increase awareness among cat owners about the benefits of CFC accreditation.
Fifth JSFM annual symposium
Over 300 vets attended the fifth Japanese Society of Feline Medicine (JSFM) symposium, which was held in Tokyo in June, and had the theme ‘the difference in medicating cats compared with dogs – what things should be considered?’
During the meeting 81 nurses were part of the first group to complete the JSFM ‘CATvocate programme’. This is a 2 year course that covers eight feline topics (including feline anatomy, client communication, nutrition and kitten health), as well as the philosophy of the Cat Friendly Clinic scheme. Just under 100 nurses also attended the first year topics.
