AAV webinar teaches students avian oil gland disease and surgery

The Association of Avian Veterinarians will hold its third basic avian medicine webinar for veterinary students and veterinary technician students, a free session set for July 18 from noon to 2 p.m. Eastern. The first half will focus on uropygial gland disease and surgery in birds, turning a small, easy-to-overlook structure into the headline topic.

The uropygial gland, also called the oil gland or preen gland, is one of the few true cutaneous glands in birds. The Merck Veterinary Manual says birds use that special skin gland to produce oil that helps waterproof feathers, which is why the structure matters far beyond grooming. AAV’s event page says the gland can become diseased enough to require medical or surgical therapy, and Merck adds that squamous cell carcinomas of the uropygial gland can occur and cause enlargement and ulceration.

For bird owners, those words translate into visible changes that are hard to miss once you know where to look. A swollen preen gland, or one that looks ulcerated or otherwise damaged, is not part of normal feather care. Those are the kinds of changes that justify an avian-veterinarian visit, especially because the gland’s job is tied directly to feather condition and waterproofing.

The second half of the webinar shifts from the exam room to the training path behind it. Brynn McCleery, DVM, DABVP, Avian Practice, and Rachel Baden, DVM, DABVP, Avian Practice, are scheduled to cover CE opportunities, externships, internships, residencies and how to find avian programs through the Veterinary Internship and Residency Match Program. AAV says the session will include time for questions and answers, keeping the format practical rather than ceremonial.

The webinar also sits inside a longer student pipeline. AAV called it the third talk in its basic avian medicine series, following a November 15, 2025 webinar on infectious disease, including aspergillosis, and a February 7, 2026 session on avian anatomy from beak to toe. The organization says its Avian Veterinary Clinical Competency Program is built to give students and early-career veterinarians day-one clinical competency education, while VIRMP functions as a listing and matching service sponsored by the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians, not an accrediting body.

For the parrot crowd, that makes the message unusually practical. A tiny gland that helps waterproof feathers can become a surgical problem, and the next generation of bird doctors is being taught to spot that shift before a grooming detail turns into a clinic case.