I'm not a vet and I don't give free advice

[HeartSong]

Yep, it's a ranting thread. I know everyone else deals with this too, so after you read mine feel free to add your own stories.

I think family is the worst for this, probably because I feel like a broken record. -"No mom, we have not covered that in school yet and no I wouldn't talk to your friend's co-worker's great-uncle's mailman's dog about it's strange colored poop even if we had covered it."

Okay, so this time it was my roommate's aunt's dog who just had a puppy that isn't doing well. My advice was "uh, find a vet." She was all "oh well I did this and this, what will the vet do?" I say, "um call him and find out?"

So apparently they don't get the hint and keep asking me so I go off and say "One-I'm not a vet, not even halfway there. Two - even if I were, I can't see or do anything over the phone. Three- if I were a vet and gave out advice and the puppy died, I could get in big trouble for possibly giving erronous advice because I CAN'T SEE THE PUPPY!"

So of course the only advice that I do give - "go to a vet" - will not be listened to.

Okay, your turn. What advice seekers have really made you grind your teeth (or whatever else you do when someone frustrates you)?

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[pressmom]

My best friend, God love her, keeps on calling for advice about her cats. She's like, "One of them is sneezing. I have some antibiotics left from the last infection, should I give them?" My answer, "I don't know, call your vet." Her reply, "But can't I just give them?" Me: "No, and I wouldn't give you advice cross-country even if I were a vet!"

And don't even get me started on the "Should I spay or neuter my ______?" The answer is always YES! Spay the darn cat before it gets pregnant again!

 

[ZoeyBay]

My dad likes to try to barter my services so he can get something in return. When I was a graphic designer, he tried to talk me into designing some logo for some exterminator so he could get free spraying for bugs. He now makes my mom call and ask me about his friend's animal's problems! She then has to relay to him that I know nothing, and to see a vet. oy.

 

[QTkitty]

haha I had the same thing happen to me recently... one of my friends called me because her friend's mom's dog was bleeding from his ear and she wanted me to tell her what to do about it. I'm like "hello, it could be a million things... go see a vet!" What is wrong with these damn people trying to solicit free advice from us?!

 

[LittleBit]

And I also LOVE how 11pm is the time to notice anything on your pet... Especially with the people you haven't talked to in at least a year.

"Uh... I know you're in Vet School, and my boxer has a bump on its jaw, should I be worried? And do you know anything about pet insurance?" OR "So, you're in Vet School, right? My friends and I decided to shave my rabbit (also at 11pm) and we kinda nicked it... What should we do?"

I'm a night owl, but still... 11pm is a brilliant time to call?! Especially when I can't even give a reasonable guess to when I talked to you last!

The first one I called back after my equine shift and was slightly grouchy, repeating the phrase, call your vet. The second had already stopped bleeding by the time I talked to them...

 

[kate_g]

My boyfriend's mom once called in a panic because her dog had diarrhea.

Granted, this was the first dog she'd ever owned in her adult life, and she's over 50. But she's been a nurse for longer than I've been alive and she's raised five children. I'm *sure* she's seen more diarrhea than I have.

As gently as I could, I told her that she could follow the same common sense guidelines that she'd use for a patient or child with diarrhea - make sure he has access to water to stay hydrated, keep his food plain and don't feed him greasy tidbits from the table, etc. And call the vet in the morning, of course.

I guess it's good for our job security, but it's funny how even people who have a reasonably good handle on human medical treatment get totally freaked out by their animals' medical problems.

(I guess that's better than the other way around, like the guy who was in a couple weeks ago who had been feeding his dog aspirin because he'd been looking a little stiff lately...)

 

[JIKJen124]

I guess it's good for our job security, but it's funny how even people who have a reasonably good handle on human medical treatment get totally freaked out by their animals' medical problems.

Seriously...!! I love how my dad and sister (both MDs) LOVE to call me and ask what to do when the dog/cat is sick. As if I know any better than they do! I usually tell them to 1. take the animal to/call the vet, and 2. I'll get back to them in 4 years when I'm a vet.

 

[Bill59]

I usually try to be as helpful as possible with general questions, like what do you do for fleas, dental care, etc. For specific questions, it's usually something like "That doesn't sound too bad, if it's not better in a few days you probably want to get it checked out." or "He's totally paralyzed in his rear legs? Yeah, I'd get him to the veterinarian right away."

The only ones that get me irritated are when someone starts complaining about how much a veterinarian charged.

"My dog got hit by a car and all he had was a broken leg and spent one night at the emergency hospital and it was OVER $600!!! Can you believe that?!?"

Me: "Uhhh, no I can't. It would have been at least twice that at my hospital."

 

[silverelf]

I usually try to be as helpful as possible with general questions, like what do you do for fleas, dental care, etc. For specific questions, it's usually something like "That doesn't sound too bad, if it's not better in a few days you probably want to get it checked out." or "He's totally paralyzed in his rear legs? Yeah, I'd get him to the veterinarian right away."

The only ones that get me irritated are when someone starts complaining about how much a veterinarian charged.

"My dog got hit by a car and all he had was a broken leg and spent one night at the emergency hospital and it was OVER $600!!! Can you believe that?!?"

Me: "Uhhh, no I can't. It would have been at least twice that at my hospital."

i used to get that all the time when i worked reception...so one day when i was at my doctor i asked him to give me a copy of the real bill, i.e. what i would pay if i didn't have insurance coverage and i brought it to work a few times and when people complained that "It only costs 15 dollars for me to see the doctor, why is it 40 for my pet?" I'd show them the bill. The look on their faces was pretty much priceless and it made up for all the b****ing I had to deal with.

 

[wivet2011]

i used to get that all the time when i worked reception...so one day when i was at my doctor i asked him to give me a copy of the real bill, i.e. what i would pay if i didn't have insurance coverage and i brought it to work a few times and when people complained that "It only costs 15 dollars for me to see the doctor, why is it 40 for my pet?" I'd show them the bill. The look on their faces was pretty much priceless and it made up for all the b****ing I had to deal with.

Do you still have a copy of the real bill? I think that's such a great idea!!

 

[KittenKiller]

Do you still have a copy of the real bill? I think that's such a great idea!!

Haha its so true, but I got in big trouble for bringing up that argument when I was working as a receptionist at a vet, so beware! People don't always take to kindly to being proven wrong.

 

[wivet2011]

Haha its so true, but I got in big trouble for bringing up that argument when I was working as a receptionist at a vet, so beware! People don't always take to kindly to being proven wrong.

Kinda OT, but I stopped at the post office in Madison this weekend and asked the clerk the zip code. He gave me this weird look and asked where I was from that I didn't know the answer already. So, I told him and he tried being a smarty pants and gave the zip for my city, only he was wrong! The best part was, he tried to prove that I was wrong by looking it up on the computer only to discover he'd just made an idiot out of himself! The look that followed was great!! I think after 20 years of living in the same city, I'd know my zip!!

Anyways, I agree with your point, but I think we've all met clients that we wouldn't mind putting in their place and this would be a great way!

 

[spikey]

my boss told me to not tell people i was going to vet school unless i was prepared to get phone calls and visits from random neighbors about their dog's diarrhea.

 

[kate_g]

Y'know, I was thinking about my SO's mom and the whole "help! my dog has diarrhea" episode. All she really wanted to know was whether this was an emergency, how long she should wait for it to clear up on its own, and whether there was anything she could give him. Most of the advice-askers mentioned above had similar motive. But honestly, in your life how many times have you called your vet with a symptom and had the receptionist tell you *anything* other than "you'd better bring him in"? Saying "it's probably nothing" or even "call back if it gets worse" is a huge liability, and clients' descriptions are so variable, no receptionist is going to risk that. But to the client, it can feel like extortion - "I refuse to answer your simple question, you'll need to come in to the office and pay $50 so that the vet can tell you it was really nothing." My SO's mom didn't want to inadvertently harm her dog, but she didn't want to get swindled either.

Does anyone's university vet hospital (or larger practice you may have worked/volunteered in) have an "advice nurse" hotline? UC Berkeley's student health clinic has one, and my SO's insurance company has one too. It seems like a great idea for this kind of situation. The phone line is staffed by an RN who can give you advice on whether or not (or how urgently) you should be seen, what you can do for self-care in the meantime, and what changes in symptoms to watch out for. I called once because I was having what I recognized (from reading about it) as a classic pre-migraine visual abnormality. I'd never had a migraine before, it was Friday afternoon and I was supposed to get on a plane that night to fly to NY for my sister's wedding, so I was desperate to know if there was anything I could do without having to wait 5 hours at the ER. The nurse went through a short checklist of stroke and heart attack symptoms to rule out serious badness, then told me to find something with caffeine in it quickly because it would be more effective before the headache started. And I should follow up at the clinic if this started happening regularly, yadda yadda.

Now, obviously the university's student clinic is subsidized by our fees, and the health insurance company would rather *not* pay for your unnecessary visits to the ER. For both of them, paying a couple RNs to staff the phone lines is worth it for the reduction in it's-really-nothing cases. For a private practice vet's office, especially one struggling to fill appointment slots, maybe you'd have to restrict access to patients who have had a checkup in the past year, are up to date on vaccines, etc., just to guarantee that clients are not using your advice line in place of actually paying you money to care for their pet. Maybe you could even charge $10 or $20 for a phone consultation with an RVT, that would be waived if the client ended up bringing the pet in to be seen after all...

 

[spikey]

For a private practice vet's office, especially one struggling to fill appointment slots, maybe you'd have to restrict access to patients who have had a checkup in the past year, are up to date on vaccines, etc., just to guarantee that clients are not using your advice line in place of actually paying you money to care for their pet. Maybe you could even charge $10 or $20 for a phone consultation with an RVT, that would be waived if the client ended up bringing the pet in to be seen after all...

Good ideas.

You addressed my first concern already saying that the "hotline" would be restricted to those that have been seen in the past 6 months or whatever of your choosing.

But the other concern I have is, like you mentioned with us being afraid or receptionists being afraid to give out advice such as "bring the animal in if it gets worse" or other advice, wouldn't having the "hotline" just be the same sort of thing? The CVT would be giving medical advice, rather than the doctor? I would think that there would be certain things that could not be consulted on or about, and that those things required visits.

One problem being that people do not always view medical issues similarly. Some people may panic when their dog reverse sneezes, but it may take vomiting for 5 days to have someone else become worried. So then it would require the doctor actually seeing and examining the dog to find the problem and how serious it is or is not. Do you see what I'm saying? In these regards, thats why I would be nervous to give advice on a thing such as diarrhea, vomiting, and the like.

Now other questions like:
how often can I bathe my dog?
how often can I use flea/tick preventative?
what exactly does Interceptor do?

You get the idea. Questions like that which do not have the potential to be life threatening or just knowledge, a "hotline" CVT would work great. I know there are times that this idea would be excellent, and work out to the clients' benefit.

 

[KittenKiller]

But the other concern I have is, like you mentioned with us being afraid or receptionists being afraid to give out advice such as "bring the animal in if it gets worse" or other advice, wouldn't having the "hotline" just be the same sort of thing? The CVT would be giving medical advice, rather than the doctor? I would think that there would be certain things that could not be consulted on or about, and that those things required visits.

I'm not sure how liability would work, but they do it in human medicine, where liability is an even greater issue. I imagine a set of protocols would have to be written by veterinarians, and any issues that weren't addressed by the protocols would have to be seen by a dr. For instance, for vomiting the owner would have to answer a list of questions and according to a flow chart or something different courses of action could be recommended (go to ER now, set up an appt with your vet tomorrow, or monitor at home).

It's true that even mild symptoms can indicate a much more serious problem, but I do understand people's frustration when they just want a bit of sound advice.

 

[Serendipity4]

I'm not gonna lie, I'm bowing my head in shame over here. I have two friends that, when we were going to high school together, we all wanted to become vets. They both worked at clinics year round whereas I only worked at one during the summer, so at that point (and really, still today) they knew more than I did. And here's the thing, I'm the type that if I know what to do for my animals, great. But if I don't know what's going on or if I'm second guessing myself, I'm likely to take them to the vet just to check things out (and almost always find out it's nothing). Well my two friends tend to be far more practical, do more wait and see, etc. etc. So guess who's been my own personal hotline for the past, oh, eight years? I mean, obviously they know that I know they don't know everything (wow, that was a fun sentence), but they still have a more rational head about my dogs and horse than I do and are good about telling to me to wait a day or two before I "rush them to the vet." Now one of them is still working in an ER clinic but the other one's studying to be a nurse; we joke that in four years they'll finally get to call me for the advice!

 

[spikey]

I'm not sure how liability would work, but they do it in human medicine, where liability is an even greater issue. I imagine a set of protocols would have to be written by veterinarians, and any issues that weren't addressed by the protocols would have to be seen by a dr. For instance, for vomiting the owner would have to answer a list of questions and according to a flow chart or something different courses of action could be recommended (go to ER now, set up an appt with your vet tomorrow, or monitor at home).

The flow chart idea would work very well I think. That would work particularly well in preventing different techs giving different answers to clients. I see it now where I work; not that its bad, but they differ in how they respond to situations. Some are bring it over to be safe and have it checked, and some are wait and tell me how it is tomorrow.

 

[kate_g]

The flow chart idea would work very well I think. That would work particularly well in preventing different techs giving different answers to clients.

I assume something like that must happen in the human med setup. I also assume that nurses staffing the lines have a substantial amount of training on managing liability. I'm sure the default answer, whenever a patient can't give complete enough information for them to be comfortable giving advice over the phone, is "you'd better come in right away." And I think that's fine, really.

In my own case with the advice nurse, I gave my symptoms and said it seemed just like descriptions I had read of pre-migraine visual effects. The nurse launched into what was obviously a set of differential questions for heart attack and stroke - did I have weakness on one side of my body or in either hand, did I have difficulty breathing, had I experienced any confusion or slurred speech, was there anyone there with me who had noticed anything strange in the past several minutes... Once she could check off the "not stroke" and "not heart attack" boxes, she agreed that my symptoms sounded like a pre-migraine and gave me advice relevant to that.

Now that I think about it, though, for the advice lines I know of the nurses are all RNs and maybe even NPs, so they've had a lot more clinical training than your average vet tech, even a registered/certified tech. So I suppose in the veterinary setting if you were going to staff the line with techs rather than vets, the advice would probably have to be more basic - do you need care RIGHT NOW or can it wait? But that's probably OK because really that's the level of advice that people seem to be looking for most often with their animals. And for the "what do I do for fleas", "do I really need heartgard", and "what kind of food do you recommend" type of questions, it seems that most clinics already have a standard policy for answering those questions because the receptionists get them so often.

 

[silverelf]

Do you still have a copy of the real bill? I think that's such a great idea!!

Technically no....it became such a popular thing that its now being held hostage at the clinic that I work at as a tech....Its been through 2 hospitals and a few years now, and I'm not going to say that everyone was thrilled with it (some people just got madder, haha) but its been great "reality check" tool...people who think they're being cheated by us take one look at that bad boy and start to see the whole story. You'd be AMAZED at how many people do not understand the basics of health insurance. But as far as what kittenkiller said about getting in trouble....both office managers I work for love it and thought it was a great idea too, so I've never had any problems

 

[spikey]

Now that I think about it, though, for the advice lines I know of the nurses are all RNs and maybe even NPs, so they've had a lot more clinical training than your average vet tech, even a registered/certified tech. So I suppose in the veterinary setting if you were going to staff the line with techs rather than vets, the advice would probably have to be more basic - do you need care RIGHT NOW or can it wait? But that's probably OK because really that's the level of advice that people seem to be looking for most often with their animals. And for the "what do I do for fleas", "do I really need heartgard", and "what kind of food do you recommend" type of questions, it seems that most clinics already have a standard policy for answering those questions because the receptionists get them so often.

yeah, exactly. most questions, the receptionists can field, if not the techs get them. if the techs can't handle them, the doctor gets spoken to, so the correct advice can be given.

i hate it when people call for medicines to get refilled or medical advice when we have NEVER seen the animal, or haven't seen it since 2001. that's always fun!

 

[HeartSong]

i hate it when people call for medicines to get refilled or medical advice when we have NEVER seen the animal, or haven't seen it since 2001. that's always fun!

You know, now that I think about it, I guess that's my real problem when people ask me for advice. If it's a pet of someone in my family or a friend's pet that I know well, then I don't mind if they ask questions. Since I know the animal, I'm more likely to be able to give helpful advice and I'll generally know the person enough to better interpret the issues that they discribe. But when it comes to animals I've never met before, that's when I think "why are you asking me?".

 

[spikey]

You know, now that I think about it, I guess that's my real problem when people ask me for advice. If it's a pet of someone in my family or a friend's pet that I know well, then I don't mind if they ask questions. Since I know the animal, I'm more likely to be able to give helpful advice and I'll generally know the person enough to better interpret the issues that they discribe. But when it comes to animals I've never met before, that's when I think "why are you asking me?".

because its FREE! typically those that annoy us with questions are those that do not want to pay for veterinarians' services. so they think they can side-step it and get some free info.

weird story. i was applying to school last year and a lady my mom knows found out. the next time she saw my mom, she asked her if i could refill medications for her friend's dog (i think it was Interceptor). regardless, i don't know the woman, let alone her friend, or the friend's dog! and i wasn't even in school yet either. sheesh!

 

[littledog]

That's such a great idea, to offer a hotline for vet advice according to a flowchart. An experienced tech or even assistant could provide good advice by following the flowchart, with the default always being "bring your pet in ASAP."

As a non-professional but experienced animal owner, I would really welcome something like this: It's always Friday night when you just got home late and find the dog vomiting. Your only choices are to see how he does until your vet's office opens Monday morning, or to rush him to the 24-hour emergency vet many miles away, only to pay through the nose to find out it's not an emergency, feeling guilty for taking the vet's time away from other animals who may be true emergencies.

I belong to a human HMO that offers this, and it seems like individual vet practices could arrange things similarly--regular patients could sign up either for a small membership fee or grandfathered in by keeping up with scheduled checkups--maybe a service such as this would encourage people who are kind of hit-and-miss to become more consciencious about keeping up with their pet's vet care.

 

[njac]

I'm a pharmacy student, so when my corgi ate an entire pack of sugar free gum (with xylitol) I called the poison control center, who had me induce vomiting and told me to call the e-clinic in town and at least check in with them. While the pharmacist at Poison Control was totally worried for my dog (I saw her at school a couple days later and she asked more) the tech who answered was totally blase'. So I think a vet student might be better to have man such a line (I know we've all seen "lifer" techs... I see them in the hospital pharmacy, you see them at the vet hospital...) as they'll be more educated and possibly have a greater ethical interest.

btw - poison control thought I was a genius when they told me to put the dog somewhere easy to clean up where I could see what she barfed and I was like "how about the bathtub?" I'm amazed no one else ever thought of that...

 

[wivet2011]

So I had a friend's friend call me last night, saying "so you're the vet friend, right? My rabbit ate a bunch of candle wax and is now acting lethargic and not eating...what should I do?" My answer: "Uh...what do you think!?" Geez...