Fetch Kansas City expands CE options with new short-session format
Bottom line
Fetch Kansas City is positioning itself as a high-yield CE stop for veterinary teams this summer, with the August 28-30, 2026 meeting offering attendees up to 20 CE credits across more than 45 educational tracks. New this year are 30-minute sessions worth 0.5 CE credit, a format change that could let veterinarians, technicians, and practice managers sample more topics in the same block of time. The program also includes keynote presentations, lunch-and-learn sessions, and two three-hour orthopedic labs, while dvm360 will also host its 6th Annual Veterinary Heroes awards ceremony during the conference. (dvm360.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the change is less about headline credit totals than scheduling flexibility. Shorter CE sessions can make it easier to build a more tailored agenda across clinical, operational, and leadership topics, especially for teams trying to balance licensure needs with practical takeaways. Fetch Kansas City is also being marketed as RACE-oriented programming, which matters because AAVSB’s RACE system is widely recognized by veterinary licensing boards and ties into CE tracking through RACEtrack. (dvm360.com)
What to watch: Watch for final RACE approval details, any agenda updates, and whether the new half-credit format expands to other Fetch meetings. (registration.dvm360.com)
Fetch Kansas City is expanding how attendees can earn continuing education in 2026, with dvm360 saying the August 28-30 conference will offer up to 20 CE credits across more than 45 learning tracks, plus a new slate of 30-minute sessions worth 0.5 credit each. The Kansas City meeting also folds in hands-on labs, sponsored meal sessions, and the live Veterinary Heroes awards ceremony, making it both an education event and a profession-facing gathering point. (dvm360.com)
The format shift stands out because conference CE has often been built around longer lecture blocks. In its conference coverage, dvm360 framed the shorter sessions as a way for attendees to explore more topics within a traditional one-hour window. That matters at a time when veterinary teams are looking for more targeted education, whether the goal is sharpening clinical skills, meeting license renewal requirements, or bringing back ideas that can be applied quickly in practice. (dvm360.com)
The conference’s official materials show a broad structure behind that pitch. Registration pages say sponsored meals can count toward the attendee’s total, up to 20 CE credits, and note that the meeting is pending RACE approval in jurisdictions that recognize it. The agenda highlighted by dvm360 includes three keynote presentations focused on cardiology, feline infectious disease, and artificial intelligence in pain management, along with two three-hour orthopedic labs scheduled for August 29: “Tibial Tuberosity Advancement: Introducing MMP” and “Patella Luxation: Introducing RidgeStop,” both led by Scott Rutherford. (registration.dvm360.com)
Kansas City is also where dvm360 plans to recognize the winners of its 6th Annual Veterinary Heroes program. According to the company’s recognition page and a June 11 Globe Newswire announcement, winners in 14 categories will be honored during Fetch Kansas City. That adds a leadership and culture element to the meeting, alongside the clinical and practice-management programming, and may help draw a broader mix of veterinarians, technicians, managers, and support staff. (dvm360.com)
There doesn’t appear to be much independent outside commentary yet on the 2026 Kansas City agenda specifically, but the regulatory backdrop is clear. AAVSB says its RACE program sets uniform standards for veterinary CE and that RACE-approved courses are accepted by the majority of veterinary licensing boards for renewal purposes. AAVSB also points attendees to RACEtrack as a tool for recording CE, which helps explain why conference organizers continue to emphasize approval status and post-event transcript access. (aavsb.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is a practical story about CE design, not just conference promotion. A shorter-session model may better fit how teams now approach professional development: mixing clinical refreshers with narrower updates in areas like feline medicine, cardiology, pain management, or orthopedics, while still carving out time for networking and team-focused content. For practices sending multiple staff members, the wider menu of short sessions could also support more intentional role-based learning, with veterinarians, credentialed technicians, and managers each building different schedules from the same event. That flexibility may be especially useful for busy clinicians who want more than passive lecture time from an in-person meeting. (dvm360.com)
There’s also a business angle. Conferences compete not only on faculty and destination, but on how efficiently they help attendees meet CE requirements. By combining keynote sessions, hands-on labs, sponsored meal programming, and shorter half-credit talks, Fetch Kansas City is effectively packaging CE as both customizable and dense. That could resonate with veterinary professionals weighing travel costs and time away from practice against the value of in-person education. This is an inference based on the conference structure and broader CE requirements landscape. (dvm360.com)
What to watch: The next markers will be final RACE approval status, any late agenda additions, and whether attendee response to the 30-minute format influences programming at future Fetch meetings later in 2026. (registration.dvm360.com)