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New Graduate Guide to Management of Acute Liver Failure
Dr Philip Judge
What You'll Learn
A collapsed, jaundiced dog with liver enzymes that are off the scale can be one of the most daunting cases to manage, as a new or recent graduate – and can feel like a diagnostic and therapeutic minefield.
This webinar will replace your anxiety with a clear, logical roadmap. We’ll strip this complex syndrome back to its fundamentals, using the liver’s core functions – detoxification, synthesis, and metabolism – as a framework to understand why these patients are so sick. From there, we’ll build a step-by-step diagnostic and therapeutic pathway to help you provide the best supportive care for your patient. You will learn how to manage complications like hepatic encephalopathy and coagulopathies, and how to buy your patient the vital time they need for their liver to regenerate.
Key Learning Points
From Function to Failure: Understand how the liver’s key roles in detoxification, synthesis, and metabolism directly relate to the clinical signs (e.g., encephalopathy, hypoglycaemia, bleeding) you see in your patient.
- Learn a systematic, tiered approach to investigating ALF, moving beyond elevated enzymes to interpret functional markers and create a practical rule-out list.
- Get practical guidance on managing complications of liver failure, including hypoglycaemia, hepatic encephalopathy, and coagulopathies, among others.
- Understand why early nutritional support is critical for liver regeneration and how to choose the right diet without precipitating encephalopathy.
- Identify the red flags that signal a poor response to therapy, and when to have honest conversations with owners or consider referral.
Meet Your Speaker
Dr Philip Judge
BVSc MVS PG Cert Vet Clin Stud MACVSc (Vet. Emergency and Critical Care; Medicine of Dogs)
Philip graduated from Massey University in New Zealand in 1992, and spent 7 years in small animal practice before undertaking a 3-year residency in veterinary emergency and critical care at the University of Melbourne in 1998.
Following his residency, Philip worked for nearly 6 years at the Animal Emergency Centre in Melbourne, becoming the Senior Veterinarian at the centre in 2004. In 2006, Philip undertook a 1-year surgical externship before moving to Townsville to take up the position of Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care at JCU. Philip is also co-founder, and director of Vet Education Pty Ltd (www.veteducation.com) – one of Australia’s leading providers of online continuing education for veterinarians and veterinary nurses.
Philip has published numerous manuals and guides concerning emergency medicine, including a CRI manual, haematology and biochemistry interpretation guide, emergency anaesthesia guide, and a ventilation therapy manual for small animals, in addition to being published in peer reviewed literature.
Philip’s key interests in veterinary science include respiratory emergencies, ventilation therapy, envenomations and toxicology.