The Animal Heartbeat

Latest Episodes:

Artificial Intelligence in Human and Veterinary Cardiology - Live from the Cambridge Festival Jun 16, 2025

Show notes

Our Animal Heartbeat live panel discussion in 2025 covers the topic of artificial intelligence and its use in veterinary and human patients. Our panel review topics such as how to validate AI tools, where AI fits in current medicine and how opportunities for its use are evolving, and should we worry about AI?

Our hosts Kieran and Jose are joined by a fantastic panel of guests:

Professor Virginia Luis Fuentes; Professor of Veterinary Cardiology, Royal Veterinary College

Professor Anurag Agarwal; Professor of Aeroacoustics, University of Cambridge

Dr Matthew Shun-Shin; Consultant Cardiologist, Imperial College London

Catherine Stowell; Imperial College London and founder of The Animal Ultrasound Association

This episode was recorded live at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, as part of the 2025 Cambridge Festival of podcasts.

Top Tips from Two Seasons of The Animal Heartbeat (Live from SPCAV Congress 2025) Jun 02, 2025

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

Join Kieran and Jose as guests of the Portuguese Society of Veterinary Cardiology 2025 Congress, where we reflect on the past two seasons of The Animal Heartbeat, and look forward to the upcoming season 3. Our hosts bring their top lessons from season 1 and 2 guests, including advice from Gerhard Wess, Claudio Bussadori and Josh Stern, in front of a live congress audience.

The 2024 Christmas Quiz (part 2) Dec 26, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

This is part 2 of The Animal Heartbeat Christmas Quiz 2024 - is you have not already done so, make sure to listen to part 1 before enjoying this episode!
Merry Christmas to all of our listeners! How better to celebrate the holiday season that a Christmas Quiz? Join Jose and Kieran, alongside some guest hosts - hand picked as future stars of the veterinary cardiology world to test our hosts' knowledge and approach to cardiology case material.
Jose and Kieran have each secretly set questions for the other. Listen to our hosts face the most public challenge to their knowledge of their careers - five questions of escalating difficulty, from generalist-level, through interested practitioner, to post-Residency knowledge, and finally verging on the impossible. Play along with the quiz using the links below to access the case material. You can even comment on each video with your thoughts before the final answer is revealed!
Enjoy the most tense episode of The Animal Heartbeat yet, as Kieran and Jose battle it out for the glory of proving themselves as Specialists in veterinary cardiology. Would they pass a Diploma exam after 10-years as cardiologists? Can their reputation remain intact? Will they still be speaking to each other by the end? Will they keep their jobs? There is only one way to find out...
Full video and audio of part 1 (available 25-Dec): https://youtu.be/QwF5fyCs-9o

Full video and audio of part 2 (available 26-Dec): https://youtu.be/vUR8jYIFIM0

Alternatively, review the media for each question separately on YouTube using the links below whilst you stream the podcast from your usual service.
Q1 for Jose (thoracic radiographs): https://youtu.be/FY8OzrlUG_Q

Q1 for Kieran (thoracic radiographs): https://youtu.be/EPmFc-tME-U

Q2 for Jose (ECG): https://youtu.be/nAXM_ywLFeI

Q2 for Kieran (echo cine loop): https://youtu.be/1uKv4W-H5oY

Q3 for Jose (CT scan): https://youtu.be/vczoj8I9g_g

Q3 for Kieran (multi-modal imaging): https://youtu.be/ISeOrjdoWgI

Q4 for Jose (angiogram; available 26-Dec): https://youtu.be/0A7y0LIeIR4

Q4 for Kieran (two echo cases; available 26-Dec): https://youtu.be/97eEOrQUdv4

Q5 for Jose (echo images and cine loop; available 26-Dec): https://youtu.be/ZMw-cLSqznI

Q5 classification system; available 26-Dec): https://youtu.be/WzRwb-iKtR0

Q5 for Kieran (cardiac post-mortem specimen; available 26-Dec): https://youtu.be/lVXIE4r7gsU

The 2024 Christmas Quiz (part 1) Dec 25, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

Merry Christmas to all of our listeners! How better to celebrate the holiday season that a Christmas Quiz? Join Jose and Kieran, alongside some guest hosts - hand picked as future stars of the veterinary cardiology world to test our hosts' knowledge and approach to cardiology case material.
Jose and Kieran have each secretly set questions for the other. Listen to our hosts face the most public challenge to their knowledge of their careers - five questions of escalating difficulty, from generalist-level, through interested practitioner, to post-Residency knowledge, and finally verging on the impossible. Play along with the quiz using the links below to access the case material. You can even comment on each video with your thoughts before the final answer is revealed!
Enjoy the most tense episode of The Animal Heartbeat yet, as Kieran and Jose battle it out for the glory of proving themselves as Specialists in veterinary cardiology. Would they pass a Diploma exam after 10-years as cardiologists? Can their reputation remain intact? Will they still be speaking to each other by the end? Will they keep their jobs? There is only one way to find out...
Full video and audio of part 1 (available 25-Dec): https://youtu.be/QwF5fyCs-9o

Full video and audio of part 2 (available 26-Dec): COMING SOON!

Q1 for Kieran (thoracic radiographs): https://youtu.be/EPmFc-tME-U

Q2 for Jose (ECG): https://youtu.be/nAXM_ywLFeI

Q2 for Kieran (echo cine loop): https://youtu.be/1uKv4W-H5oY

Q3 for Jose (CT scan): https://youtu.be/vczoj8I9g_g

Q3 for Kieran (multi-modal imaging): https://youtu.be/ISeOrjdoWgI

Q4 for Jose (angiogram; available 26-Dec)

Q4 for Kieran (two echo cases; available 26-Dec)

Q5 for Jose (echo images and cine loop; available 26-Dec)

Q5 classification system; available 26-Dec)

Q5 for Kieran (cardiac post-mortem specimen; available 26-Dec)

11: Hallowe'en Special - the most terrifying heart diseases Oct 31, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

Hallowe'en is a time for bringing people together and sharing scary stories. Did you ever hear the one about the young, newlywed couple who broke down on the country road by the old psychiatric hospital...? No need to worry - this strictly scientific discussion sees Kieran and Jose share stories of the most terrifying heart conditions that they know of. The recording was plagued by unexplained technical difficulties... Jose was was delayed by a closed motorway, and Kieran was recording from a possibly haunted house. Add to that a specially remixed theme tune, and you can't help be in the Hallowe'en spirit after listening to our final FINAL episode of season 2.

10: The LOOK-Mitral Registry, with Prof Michele Borgarelli Oct 07, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

Mitral valve disease is the most common heart disease diagnosed in dogs. Our understanding of it affects how we manage a wide range of scenarios, from asymptomatic heart murmurs detected at annual vaccination, to patients with respiratory signs or those about to undergo sedation or anaesthesia, or simply receive fluid therapy. Join Professor Michele Borgarelli, from the Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, as he speaks to Kieran and Jose about an innovative dataset on over 6000 dogs with mitral valve disease, the LOOK-Mitral Registry, and how research like this can inform decision making in the clinic.

9: Diuretic strategy and overcoming resistance, with Prof Mark Oyama Sep 23, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

Vets understand that the cornerstone of treatment for congestive heart failure in animals is the use of loop diuretics, such as furosemide. But resistance occurs in all patients over time, and intensification of diuretic treatment is a vital part of managing patients with clinical signs - both for left- and right-sided manifestations of disease. How are we best to approach this, and what can we do when using diuretic drugs to make the best decisions that will have positive benefits for our patients? Join Jose and Kieran as they welcome Prof Mark Oyama, from the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss strategic use of diuretic drugs in the clinic and the most up to date research on how to judge diuretic efficacy in acute and chronic heart failure patients.

8: Echocardiographic measurements, with Prof Lance Visser Sep 09, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

As veterinary cardiologists, we rely on ultrasound every day to assess cardiac structure and function. Whilst important for owners to understand the cause of a murmur or clinical signs, we use echo to make critical decisions about when and how to treat, and inform conversations with owners about prognosis. The impact of echo on the lives of our patients is greater than anything else we do. But it may not be as accurate as you think... Learn how to best use echocardiography to make decisions, and which echo measurements may be best to select for accuracy, by joining Jose and Kieran as they speak to Dr Lance Visser, Assistant Professor at Colorado State University, about his research work in veterinary echo and his advice on how best to use this fundamental tool.

7: An equine cardiology safari, with Prof Colin Schwarzwald Aug 26, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

Horses are highly evolved athletes, with mind-bending changes to the cardiovascular system achieved during exercise. How does the spectrum of heart disease compare to that seen in dogs and cats? Join our hosts, Jose and Kieran, as they enjoy a rapid-fire review of equine cardiac disorders with Prof Colin Schwarzwald, director of the Clinic of Equine Internal Medicine at the Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich.

6: Screening for feline HCM, with Prof Jens Häggström Aug 12, 2024

Show notes

Message our hosts, Kieran and Jose.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) affects 1 in 7 cats overall, and has huge implications for feline health and wellbeing across the globe. Strategies to detect early disease are fundamentally important to both pet owners and cat breeders, so that individual animals and the wider breed can be cared for as needed. Screening for HCM in apparently healthy cats has become a hot topic, and who could be better to join Jose and Kieran for a discussion on that subject than Prof Jens Häggström? Jens is leader of the internationally recognised PawPeds echo screening programme, and originator of the some of the largest studies on feline disease ever published. Listen in as he shares insights into their most recent data and his opinions on how best to approach screening for early disease.

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