Instructors
Meet the Online Vet Taining Instructors
Online Vet Training
At OVT, we are dedicated to providing small animal veterinarians with high-quality, clinically relevant continuing education that is engaging, accessible, and easy to apply to everyday practice. Our founder, Geert Paes, is a European small animal veterinary internal medicine specialist with a deep passion for teaching. With years of experience in veterinary education, Geert recognized the growing need for convenient, comprehensive learning pathways that allow veterinarians to enhance their skills without disrupting their busy schedules.
Originally created to serve Dutch-speaking veterinarians, OVT quickly gained positive feedback from professionals who appreciated the practical, no-nonsense approach to veterinary learning. This response confirmed that there was a wider demand for accessible, high-quality education, and it led to the expansion of our offerings to English-speaking veterinarians as well.
Today, OVT works with over 20 specialists from various veterinary fields to provide a broad range of courses. Our team is continuously growing, driven by a shared mission to make continuing education both practical and enjoyable for veterinarians everywhere.
We understand that time is one of the most valuable resources for veterinarians, which is why our learning paths are designed to be flexible, concise, and highly relevant to real-world practice. At OVT, we are committed to helping you grow professionally while ensuring that your time and effort lead to immediate, impactful results in your daily veterinary practice.
Lesgevers
Geert Paes
After graduating as a veterinarian in 2006 from the University of Ghent, Geert completed an internship and a residency in internal medicine of companion animals. Until 2012, she worked with great pleasure at the university in Ghent, while in her spare time she worked as a tour guide and met her Canadian husband. In 2012 she moved to Western Canada where she first worked for two years as a primary care veterinarian and in 2015 switched back to emergency and referral veterinary medicine. During her years in primary care veterinary medicine, she gained enormous respect for the work as a ‘practice veterinarian’ and also realizes that ‘the ideal scenario’ does not always exist and that we as veterinarians have to be flexible.
Geert has been a diplomate of the European college of veterinary internal medicine (ECVIM-ca) since 2017. She is (co)author of several scientific publications. Because Geert is passionate about teaching, she founded OVT in 2019 with the aim of supporting veterinarians and veterinary assistants as much as possible with accessible, high-quality and practically applicable training materials. In addition to working for OVT, she also works as a teleconsultant and as a specialist at Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Surrey, Canada.
Yi Cui
Yi completed her veterinary studies and internship in 2013 at the University of Ghent and obtained her specialization in Internal Medicine in 2019 in Giessen (Germany). She then worked as a clinical supervisor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Giessen.
Yi built an extensive academic career in various university hospitals. She had the opportunity to work with renowned professors in her field at the universities of Ghent, Utrecht and Bern, each time in the role of specialist in Internal Medicine. In 2022, she worked for a year at the largest private veterinary clinic in Hong Kong, where she became acquainted with the ins and outs of practice outside the university.
Exploring new environments, learning from and working with different experts and experiencing new cultures was always central and essential to her personal growth. That is why she decided to explore the world, together with her partner, their adorable cat Nidalee and adventurous dog Harper, bit by bit, country by country. Yi has been working online since 2023, as a consultant for primary care veterinarians on challenging cases and as a lecturer for various courses in her field. She also remains practically active through locums in clinics around the world. She supplements this with volunteer work at various local animal shelters.
Joachim Proot
Joachim Proot (ECVS diplomate) graduated as a veterinarian from the University of Ghent in 2001. After graduating, he did an internship in Canada and then worked in England for five years. After obtaining his Certificate in Small Animal Surgery; in 2006 he started working in a secondary care clinic in the United Kingdom and followed his ECVS specialization training there.
Joachim currently works as a soft tissue surgeon at Dierenziekenhuis Barendrecht (Netherlands) and also works as a passionate teacher for the Evidensia Academy (Netherlands). Joachim’s interest lies in soft tissue surgery, but in his specialization trajectory he also gained extensive experience in orthopedics and neurosurgery.
Sanne Melis
Sanne graduated as a veterinarian in 2008 from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (University of Ghent). She then completed a rotating internship at the Department of Small Animals in Merelbeke.
After working as an anesthesia intern in France for a year, she returned to Ghent and started her specialization training in anesthesia, which she successfully completed in 2014 with her European specialist diploma (Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia).
In 2015, she moved to the United Kingdom, where she became a Recognized Specialist in Veterinary Anaesthesia in RCVS. She has been working at Pride Veterinary Referrals as an anesthetist since 2016. She is also responsible for the pain clinic there. Sanne is particularly interested in the induction and monitoring of anesthesia, the recognition of pain in animals and the treatment of chronic pain.
Ine Cornelis
Ine Cornelis graduated as a veterinarian in 2008 from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (University of Ghent). She then followed a one-year rotating internship at the Department of Small Animals (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine) in Merelbeke.
In October 2009, Ine started her residency in neurology, which she successfully completed in 2014 with her European specialist diploma (Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Neurology). At the same time, she also started a doctoral research on the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of meningoencephalomyelitis of unknown origin in dogs.
From November 2014 to November 2015, she worked as a Staff Clinician in Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Royal Veterinary College in London.
After returning to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (Ghent University) at the end of 2015, Ine continued working on her PhD, which she successfully defended in April 2017. Since then, Ine has been working as a neurology specialist at the Small Animal Clinic (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University).