CAS ED-Pro Specialisation: Ethics in Veterinary Practice 

Work through difficult decisions about animal care

When does further treatment serve an animal’s interests? How should you respond when an owner’s wish conflict with your assessment of the animal’s welfare? What should guide your recommendation when several options are medically possible, but each raises ethical concerns?

Veterinary practice involves responsibilities towards animals, their owners, colleagues and society. Clinical evidence is essential to these decisions, but it does not always determine what ought to be done.

This specialisation helps you examine ethical dilemmas systematically. You will learn to identify competing responsibilities, assess the reasons for different courses of action, and develop recommendations you can explain to others.

Through case analysis and discussion, you will practise:

• Examining decisions about treatment, quality of life and euthanasia.
• Distinguishing clinical uncertainty from disagreement about values.
• Assessing tensions between animal welfare, owners’ preferences and practical constraints.
• Explaining the ethical reasoning behind a recommendation.

• Target audience

  This specialisation is intended for veterinary practitioners, official veterinarians and professionals who contribute to veterinary care, advice or oversight. It may also interest animal owners and breeders.

• Registration deadline

  Early-bird: 30 April 2027

  Regular: 30 June 2027

• Costs

  Early-bird: 6'950 CHF

  Regular: 7’950 CHF

• Dates

   

  BASICS
  Module 1 What Is Ethical Decision-Making? (4 ECTS)	10-11 September 2027 & 24-25 September 2027
  THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE
  Module 2 Animal Cognition (2 ECTS)	8-9 October 2027
  Module 3 Animal Ethics (2 ECTS)	5-6 November 2027
  SPECIALISATION
  Module 4b Ethics in Veterinary Practice (3 ECTS)	26-27 November 2027 & 3 December 2027
  INTEGRATION
  Module 5 Integration of knowledge and methods; writing of the final thesis. (4 ECTS)	14-15 January 2028