End the Summer Right: Why WVC Nashville Is the CE Trip You Actually Want to Take
You made it through the summer.
You survived the Saturday emergency calls and the Monday morning boarding drop-offs and the back-to-back appointments that somehow turned every "light day" into a ten-hour shift. You answered questions about flea prevention in July heat and explained why the cat that "just stopped eating" needed bloodwork and not just an appetite stimulant. You did the thing you always do — you showed up, you stayed sharp, and you took care of everybody else's animals like they were your own.
You've earned a send-off.
WVC Nashville is August 15–18 at the Music City Center. We're going to make a case that this is the most fun you will have getting your CE credits all year. Not fun-for-a-conference fun. Actually fun. Nashville fun. End-of-summer, live music, great food, standing in a room full of people who love this profession as much as you do, fun.
The CE Is Real. Like, Really Real.
WVC Nashville is offering 400+ hours of RACE-approved CE across four days across nearly every specialty including anesthesia, emergency and critical care, cardiology, pain management, ultrasound, wound care, equine, food animal, exotics, practice management.
The speaker lineup pulls from the best programs in the country. Dan Fletcher from Cornell on blood gas interpretation and small animal ECC. Kati Glass from Texas A&M on equine lameness and emergency care. Mike Schoonover from Oklahoma State on equine surgical techniques. Armi Pigott from Cornell walking through respiratory distress and fluid therapy in an interactive format.
The Hands-On Labs (August 17–18)
Available labs include:
• Targeted therapy for canine osteoarthritis — practical joint injection technique
• Soft tissue surgery with staplers and vessel-sealing technology
• Introduction to fracture management and bone plates
• Practical canine dentistry — extraction basics
• Central venous catheter placement
• Anesthetic equipment setup, breathing circuits, and ventilator use
Instructor-to-participant ratios are kept intentionally small. These are the hands-on hours that actually change what you can do on a Monday morning back home.
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The Talk That Every Veterinarian Needs to Be In the Room For
The CVMO Leadership Panel — Leading Forward: Building the Next Generation of Veterinary Leadership — is one of the most compelling sessions on the Nashville program.
Four of the industry's top chief veterinary officers. One candid conversation. No spin — real discussion about what it takes to lead a veterinary team right now, in a profession that is changing faster than most of us anticipated.
The panelists:
• Stacey Burdick, CMO, Ethos Veterinary Health
• Audrey Wystrach, CEO, Petfolk
• Andrea Crum, Chief Care Advancement Officer, Community Veterinary Partners
• Dan Markwalder, CVO, Mission Pet Health
• Christie Long, CMO, Modern Animal
These are the people making decisions at scale about how veterinary medicine evolves. Hearing them think out loud, in the same room as you, is not something you get from a podcast or a CE module.
Something That's Never Been Done at a Conference This Size
Sunday, August 16 is a full-day DVM + Cattle Producer Track, and it's genuinely unprecedented at this level. DVMs and working cattle producers sharing the stage and the conversation — talking through production medicine and real issues on cattle-producing ranches, together. Speakers include Elizabeth Homerosky and Mark Hilton. If food animal is part of your practice, Sunday is your day.
Now. Nashville.
Friday Night: PBR Stampede Days
The conference kicks off Saturday, but Friday night (August 14) belongs to the Professional Bull Riders. WVC has a 30% discount code — WVC30 — off tickets. (Excludes lowest and VIP tiers.) If you're arriving Friday and looking for something to do, this is the answer.
Saturday: Nash Bash Block Party
The official WVC Nashville kickoff on Saturday, August 15. This is where the conference community forms — where you run into people you met three conferences ago and meet the ones you've only known from social media.
Monday Night: Tails & Tunes Concert
Blanco Brown. Uncle Kracker. Gretchen Wilson.
Three artists, one Monday night in Nashville, at the end of four days of education and networking and hands-on labs. That's a send-off.
The Exhibit Hall Is Worth Your Time
300+ exhibitors across four days with a new exhibit hall format worth exploring with intention. New products. New technology. Learning Hubs. And — more importantly — the conversations that don't happen in a CE session. The one-on-one with a rep who can tell you what practices like yours actually do with a product. The colleague you bumped into and ended up talking to for forty-five minutes about technician retention.
The Real Case for Going
Continuing education is a requirement. You know that, you do it, you check the box. The question is whether you do it in a way that also refuels you — that gives you back some of the energy and connection that this job demands you sustain year after year.
WVC Nashville is four days in a city that knows how to host people, surrounded by a profession that you chose and that chose you back. The education is excellent. The events are genuinely fun. The people in that building are your people.
Summer ends on your terms this year. August 15–18. Music City Center. Nashville, Tennessee.
Register at WVC Nashville 2026 Registration
Standard registration for DVMs includes full access to CE sessions, the exhibit hall, and all conference events. Hands-on labs available as add-ons. Register early — Nashville hotel inventory moves.
Vet Candy is a proud media partner of WVC Nashville 2026. We'll be there covering the sessions, the events, and the conversations worth having. Find us on-site and at myvetcandy.com.
