The Echocardio Academy is a 5-day practical course dedicated to practising echocardiography and understanding its role in Cardiology. This course runs from Monday to Friday and provides you with a fully inclusive week of hands-on training. The level of the course is adapted to the needs of the delegates and can range from consistency in basic views to advanced Doppler work and measurements.

Before the practical course, you are given access to a distance-based course to review the principles of echocardiography and how to perform a full echocardiac examination, created by Cardiology specialist Dr. Mattia Basili. When you attend the practical sessions, you will be performing echos from day 1.

Participants are placed in groups of 2 to 3 delegates and swap between patient restraint and performing echo. There are 2 ultrasound machines and an experienced tutor guiding the participants, demonstrating techniques and ensuring that everyone can reach their individual goals. We try very hard to make sure all our tutors have "real world" experience with cardiology cases, but also a passion for teaching.

Echos are performed on live (non sedated) dogs. Some of the dogs are brought down from the Council Dog Ward and have been diagnosed with systemic disease (ie Leishmania, heartworm), but the majority is unlikely to have cardiac pathology.

The practical course takes place at our partner training centre in Vila Franca de Xira, Lisbon, Portugal. The training centre is located 25 mins away from Lisbon airport.

As part of the course fees, participants have access to accommodation off site with their own private bedroom (not shared, unless requested). All meals (in restaurante) from Monday to Friday are also included.

We operate registrations on a priority basis for upcoming dates. If you are interested in future dates, sign up for the priority list. Vets in the priority list have the ability of signing up before we open registrations to everyone.

If there are available dates, we recommend you sign up for pre-registration, after which one of our team members will get in touch to go through available vacancies and clarify any questions you ahve to make sure you know what to expect from this Academy.

DATES FOR 2026:

• 6 - 10 April - LAST SPOT
• Future dates - sign up for the priority list using the pre-registration form link below

Accommodation is included from the day before with checkout the day after.

If you are interested in other imaging academies, we also run an Ultrasound Academy for abdominal ultrasound.

If you are interested in surgical skills, we run Spay Academy level 1 for cats, and Spay Academy level 2 for bitch spays.