“I'm quite comfortable with basic medical and first aid care for animals but I wanted to feel more confident about recognising early signs of pain in my own pets as well as clients’ pets so I enrolled in the 5Ps course earlier this year to expand my knowledge.

Being an online course with access (continuously) to the tutorials and notes meant I could work the course into my schedule without an issue and revise as often as I wanted to. The quizzes and assessment were all relevant to the course material. Dr Grantham is very knowledgeable, and I found her tutorials easy to follow and her feedback very encouraging. She also offered "little extras" rather than just yes/no responses.

The course is heavily dog centred so as a trainer and pet minder it was right in my wheelhouse. I have a good eye to detect the slightest change in a dog’s demeanour and now I can pinpoint more specifically where the pain might originate from.

Additionally, the course opened up more information regarding therapies for chronic pain that I wasn't aware of - specifically Hyperbaric treatment which I have been attending with three of my dogs (one of which was holding pain but only showing behavioural not neurological signs of having). I recommend this course to others 100%.”

Michelle Hamilton

Australia

“I recently completed CIVT’s Graduate Diploma in Western Herbal Medicine course. I have always been passionate about and sought integrative medicine with respect to my own health. As a Veterinarian, I really wanted the opportunity to be able to do the same for my patients. Conventional medicine has a place, but at times has left me frustrated particularly with respect to side effects, limitations, application and sometimes despite our best attempts, poor patient outcomes. I struggled with the feeling that there must be more I could do and a desire to make the patient well from inside to out, to mitigate disease and illness and facilitate recovery and healing. I desired better long-term outcomes, an integrated approach, higher remissions, reduced side effects, better recovery, gentle palliation, and better chronic disease management. Integrative medicine allows me to achieve these goals better and to practice veterinary medicine at a deeper level. Completing this course has provided another layer to my veterinary degree and provided me with more tools for my veterinary toolbox. The Graduate Diploma has been in depth and detailed and given me the knowledge, a deeper understanding, and the confidence I needed to provide strong foundations and facilitate the application of herbal medicine in my day-to-day care of patients. I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in integrative medicine who wants to better appreciate/understand the complexity of disease and wellness and admire the power of herbs and herbal medicine.”

Dr Che Phillips

Australia

"I took the Essentials of Veterinary Medicinal Mushroom course last year and am so happy that I did! I was prescribing a few mushroom blends, but this course gave me the information I needed to prescribe with confidence. It was well presented, had links to numerous research and published articles and you can't get a better teacher than Dr Silver. I would highly recommend this course to any integrative practitioner who is looking to add to their herbal pharmacy."

Dr Charoul Lekx

Canada

“I inquired about the he Certification in Small Animal Natural Nutrition course after a couple years of debating whether I should become a nutritionist for dogs and cats. It all started from my Corgi, 'Rogue'. He was diagnosed with lymphoma at the young age of six. I met with a “nutritionist” at a local store and was shown a premade raw diet. Rogue thrived and looked healthier even while in chemotherapy than he did when on his previous dry diet. Rogue had one bad day and that was the day I had to let him go. To this day I push to help animals seek a healthier diet in the hope of improving their quality of life, whether healthy or suffering from illness or disease. In honor of Rogue and because of my boy’s journey, I have named my business after him - “Gone Rogue Nutrition for Small Animals”. This course was wonderful, touching upon healthy diet ideas as well as natural supplementation to help build a healthy body to combat ailments or disease. The course helped me learn how to formulate healthy recipes for dogs and cats. Traditional and holistic worlds can work together for a pet’s quality of life, and that is my goal.” 

Samantha Bouthillette

United States of America

“The content of the Natural Animal Nutrition course was both broad and deep, including core principles of nutrition, energy/calorie calculations, commercial foods, alternative feeding approaches, homemade diets, supplements, nutraceuticals, detoxification, fasting and weight/obesity management. It was really useful to gain the knowledge and tools needed to assess and understand commercial pet foods and to learn the exact nutrients that a dog/cat needs and how to formulate a fresh, balanced and complete diet. The Animal Diet Formulator tool introduced during the course is highly practical and useful (it's definitely something I will continue in my studies and future career). I particularly enjoyed the recorded and live lectures delivered by different veterinary professionals. The support from Mio, our lead tutor, was excellent. She answered all questions with detailed and well thought out responses and provided useful feedback on assessments (which she also marked very quickly). I am excited to progress with my studies in the Advanced Certification of Small Animal Naturopathy!”

Lorna Brennan

New Zealand

“After seeing the benefits of Western herbal medicine and more holistic choices for my family's health, I knew I needed to bring the same approach to my veterinary patients. I was so excited to find CIVT's veterinary Western herbal medicine courses, which provided an herbal education that honored tradition without sacrificing scientific study and evidence. The Graduate Diploma course was rigorous and thorough, but definitely attainable part time. I especially found the system-by-system approach in the second year gave me practical strategies for treating a wide variety of cases. The feedback on both real and practice cases from the instructors was encouraging, supportive, and instructive. It is humbling and exciting to see the evolution of my integrative case workups over the course of the two years. Completing the Graduate Diploma has expanded the treatment options I have for my patients, grown me as a veterinarian, and given me a solid foundation for using plants to heal.”

Dr Laurel Poteete

United States of America

“I've always had an interest in Eastern medicine, which is probably a bit of an intuitive thing for me. Years ago, I completed the IVAS acupuncture course, but life and practice demands got in the way of pursuing acupuncture in more detail.   This year I completed the Essentials of Veterinary Chinese Herbal Medicine which I found interesting and challenging, although it was more time consuming than I thought was going to be the case. Nonetheless, I was keen to follow up with the Drs Steve and Karen Marsden’s 'Keys to the Kingdom' seminar which was very interesting, very challenging (as I had extremely limited experience in Chinese herbs) and was very educational, as it covered subjects about which I knew absolutely nothing of note.  I was quite overwhelmed with the volume of new stuff that I was trying to retain without it rapidly leaking out through my ears.  I have enrolled in the two-year Graduate Diploma of Veterinary Chinese Herbal Medicine course as I want to improve my skills in this area given that I still feel very inadequate with my current level of knowledge, and I am sure this course will help a lot.   It will take a lot of work. I see Eastern Medicine as filling a void that Western Medicine struggles to fill, and despite all the debate about scientific proof etc, it has stood the test of time, which says a lot in my opinion.”

Dr Greg Sezun

Australia

“I was the only student in my vet school class to specialize in food animal medicine. I was fascinated with all animals and wanted to extend myself beyond a basic education. My interests expanded to providing alternative methods of healthcare to (almost) all animal species. From homeopathy to chiropractic and beyond, I was open to learning whatever it took to treat my patients’ issues. This led me to CIVT’s Graduate Diploma of Veterinary Chinese Medicine course, which was very rigorous, and plain old hard! But I learnt so much, more than I expected. I felt I had a decent foundation knowledge but knew my understanding of advanced topics was underdeveloped. This course addressed all of that. I’m really happy to have undertaken the course, and even happier to have successfully completed it.”

Dr Catherine Alinovi

United States of America

“I had been a human osteopath for over twenty years and had also been treating dogs using osteopathy and dry needling for quite some time. I always referred my human patients out for acupuncture as I had seen the benefits. I became interested in improving my needling technique and options for dogs, so I enrolled in CIVT’s Graduate Diploma of Veterinary Acupuncture course. Acupuncture has allowed me to future proof as it's less physically demanding than osteopathy.”

Rachel Mahoney

Australia