Professor Caroline Mansfield is a registered specialist in small animal medicine and she is recognized as an international leader in veterinary internal medicine. She graduated from Murdoch University and worked in mixed animal and small animal practice in Australia and the UK before completing a residency in small animal medicine at University College, Dublin.

Caroline developed an interest in gastroenterology during that time and continued her clinical and research passion in academia. From 2001 until 2010 she was employed at Murdoch University as a clinical registrar and then senior lecturer – moving to the University of Melbourne in late 2010 as the Head of Small Animal Medicine and then becoming Professor and Director of Clinical Research.

Her research involves projects investigating mechanisms involved in canine inflammatory bowel disease, the pancreas and establishing the impact in the gut microbiome has on health and disease in dogs.

Topics discussed include:

• What made Dr Mansfield want to become a veterinarian and what sparked her interest in gastroenterology.
• Projects Caroline has been involved in throughout her career.
• Dr Mansfield’s current canine microbiome and chronic enteropathy study.
• Effects of diet on diet-responsive enteropathies.
• Dr Caroline talks about her project on ‘Modifying the gut-brain axis to improve outcomes in shelter animals’.
• Probiotic benefits in decreasing stress in dogs.
• Common feline digestive disorders Dr Mansfield gets presented with and how she manages them.
• When are probiotics indicated in feline digestive disorders?
• When to reach for prebiotics or symbiotics?
• Dr Caroline specifies the indication for Metronidazole.