Learn to produce minimal tissue trauma for a a better healing and how to avoid postoperative incision leak in your gastrointestinal and urinary surgeries. In this hands-on session, delegates will learn how to correctly perform basic abdominal surgical procedures (i.e. enterotomy, enterectomy, gastrotomy, gastrectomy and cystotomy), and how to check if the tissue apposition is adequate in order to prevent the risk of postoperative leakage. Various suture patterns will be presented and practiced on gastrointestinal and bladder segments. Participantes will learn all the relevant suture patterns from the basic simple interrupted and simple continuous pattern, to the more advanced patterns such as Cushing, Lembert or Mattress patterns, and practice different knotting techniques. Where and when the different types of sutures are used will also be discussed. This is an interactive, hands-on session focused on basic surgery and it is intended for veterinary surgeons with minimal experience in this field.