RANT HERE thread

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WildZoo said:
I wonder if they use iso for that, or if they're more likely to use sevo because of the smell.

Of note, no chambers at the clinic I work at unless they've hidden them somewhere (the last time I used one was for a chinchilla at a zoo!), just a kitty in a burrito and a mask. He was shockingly good for it but I'm not sure what they do with the more difficult kitties.
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Wait, if kitty was that good, why not injectable? What was the rationale?
 
Minnerbelle said:
Wait, if kitty was that good, why not injectable? What was the rationale?
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Literally no clue, all I got was "[boss's name] doesn't like that/we never do that"

Boss has been out for a couple weeks with a back injury and I haven't gotten the rundown on things like their usual sedation and anesthesia protocols so I wasn't even aware it was a thing. And like I said I have done similar things at the other location and no one said a word, actually it was what they expected me to do, so idk.

Very confusing the more I think about it.
 
PippyPony said:
Kids get midazolam +/- nitrous first, so they are sedated and unaware when this is happening. Also, they use sevo exclusively in human med.
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Also, pediatric human medicine is so weird.

I was so taken aback when I was told I needed to gown up and hold down my nephew for xrays when he was a toddler. Like, y’all don’t have a designated holder downer? And the radiology tech almost took an X-ray of my skull... since I was using my head to hold down the abdomen while using my arms to hold down chest and legs thinking she’s give me a count down and I’d be able to get out of the way. Nope, I heard the xray whirring, and was like wtf and pulled away just in time...
 
WildZoo said:
Literally no clue, all I got was "[boss's name] doesn't like that/we never do that"

Boss has been out for a couple weeks with a back injury and I haven't gotten the rundown on things like their usual sedation and anesthesia protocols so I wasn't even aware it was a thing. And like I said I have done similar things at the other location and no one said a word, actually it was what they expected me to do, so idk.

Very confusing the more I think about it.
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maybe this is a dr. Tech situation and this is just that tech’s preference and boss usually just goes along with it? That’s so weird. Seriously **** that.
 
Minnerbelle said:
and with very young puppies and kittens, gassing down is actually safer than injectables.

though man, I absolutely hate when clinics routinely dump cats into tanks that hook onto vaporizers and gas chamber them down. It’s not safe for the cat, and it’s not safe for the people dealing with the situation. And what a horrible experience that must be for the cat.
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Sorry, not sorry, I have had instances that the gas chamber was the ONLY appropriate solution for a particular patient. Granted it has happened exactly twice, but yeah, the old dusty anesthesia chamber does still serve a purpose in some cases. I had one cat that would vagal with any restraint, so giving it injectable was not possible and was dangerous. He was calm chilling in the gas tank and no vagal issues.
 
I still remember getting gassed down for my tonsillectomy when I was a kid!! A quick mask with the goods and I was down for the count. Haha though I don’t know if it was nitrous or not. I remember it smelling like bubblegum
 
itsrocky said:
I still remember getting gassed down for my tonsillectomy when I was a kid!! A quick mask with the goods and I was down for the count. Haha though I don’t know if it was nitrous or not. I remember it smelling like bubblegum
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They scent the anesthetic gas for kids.
Maybe we need chicken scented anesthetic gas in vet med?
 
DVMDream said:
They scent the anesthetic gas for kids.
Maybe we need chicken scented anesthetic gas in vet med?
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ugh could you imagine being like 10 hours into a shift, going to knock out a cat and the scent of chicken noodle soup wafts through the air?? My diet would be damned, ha.
 
DVMDream said:
No they don't. Not always.
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Pediatric criticalist: "yes they do"

But, this doctor also said that the kids who are old enough to talk don't always remember how stressed they were afterwards. So honestly, that makes me feel a little better about the whole thing.

Also, TIL it is super hard to get an IV catheter into a toddler.
 
PippyPony said:
Pediatric criticalist: "yes they do"

But, this doctor also said that the kids who are old enough to talk don't always remember how stressed they were afterwards. So honestly, that makes me feel a little better about the whole thing.

Also, TIL it is super hard to get an IV catheter into a toddler.
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What pediatric criticalist and what criticalist is putting kids under anesthesia?

Yes, it is very hard to get an IV into a toddler, hence why I highly doubt they are getting midazolam prior to. Have you watched them anesthetize a child? I was shocked at first, but trust me, they are fully aware, crying, freaking out, scared, and are gassed right down, typically with fun scented anesthetic gas.
 
itsrocky said:
I still remember getting gassed down for my tonsillectomy when I was a kid!! A quick mask with the goods and I was down for the count. Haha though I don’t know if it was nitrous or not. I remember it smelling like bubblegum
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I don't recall it smelling like bubblegum! Maybe they just didn't like me. 😛
 
DVMDream said:
What pediatric criticalist and what criticalist is putting kids under anesthesia?

Yes, it is very hard to get an IV into a toddler, hence why I highly doubt they are getting midazolam prior to. Have you watched them anesthetize a child? I was shocked at first, but trust me, they are fully aware, crying, freaking out, scared, and are gassed right down, typically with fun scented anesthetic gas.
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I'm not lying, if that is what you're implying. I just asked someone about this because I was curious if I was being overly judgemental, and wanted to learn more about how it works in another species who can conveniently describe their experience.
 
PippyPony said:
I'm not lying, if that is what you're implying. I just asked someone about this because I was curious if I was being overly judgemental, and wanted to learn more about how it works in another species who can conveniently describe their experience.
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I am not saying you are lying. I am saying that from what I have seen, they do not all always get the benefit of these pre-anesthetics, and, even if they do, they are not all unaware of what is going on when they arrive to the point of having an oxygen masked plopped onto their faces.

Will they remember it after? Maybe, maybe not.
 
PippyPony said:
Pediatric criticalist: "yes they do"

But, this doctor also said that the kids who are old enough to talk don't always remember how stressed they were afterwards. So honestly, that makes me feel a little better about the whole thing.

Also, TIL it is super hard to get an IV catheter into a toddler.
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I feel like human toddlers have kinda like lizard legs... like beardies. Minus the scales obviously. Fat and stout!

DVMDream said:
I asked the compounding pharmacy if they have butter flavor, because my cat loves butter. They do not have butter flavor. 🙁
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There's butter powder you can buy that's super duper strong, wonder if it's safe/you could mix a teeny bit of that in?
 
DVMDream said:
Sorry, not sorry, I have had instances that the gas chamber was the ONLY appropriate solution for a particular patient. Granted it has happened exactly twice, but yeah, the old dusty anesthesia chamber does still serve a purpose in some cases. I had one cat that would vagal with any restraint, so giving it injectable was not possible and was dangerous. He was calm chilling in the gas tank and no vagal issues.
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um never said it can never be used. I said places that routinely use it. Big difference.

ive tanked down more than 2 cats in my career and didn’t feel bad about it.
 
I have no idea if I was given any premeds because I was 4, but I definitely remember being masked down and trying to hold my breath because I didn’t want to go to sleep because they didn’t let my mom in the room :bag:
I do however, remember the nasty orange flavored medicine I had to take at home afterwards that made me immediately vomit. That was the first and last time I have taken orange flavored medicine to this day.
 
I wanted to comment because I found this whole discussion very interesting.

1. The one vet recently told me a horror story about a headstrong technician who discharged a patient without her approval. The patient apparently had some major, weird complications and died later on. I don’t remember the exact circumstances. I’m not a tech, I’m an assistant (bottom of the totem pole so I know my place lol) but headstrong techs aren’t definitely a thing. IMO, if techs are giving anyone a hard time about their protocols, I agree with everyone who said stick to your guns. I just wanted to comment my story because it made me think of that.
2. I wouldn’t say my clinic REGULARLY gases down cats. We mainly do it if a cat is very aggressive and we can’t examine them without sedation or we have shave downs that come in a few times a year the needed to be tanked down. I didn’t realize this was a controversy? Granted the doctor I work with graduated in the late 90’s. Not exactly old school but not exactly fresh grad either. Can someone explain for my own curiosity why it’s controversial and how it can be harmful?
3. The discussion regarding tanking also makes me think of the REALLY old school vet who uses our surgical suite from time to time. He’s like in his 70’s and is basically retired but will still do ear crops (gross) for a couple of clients. I always feel bad for the schnauzers and the Brussels griffons that he does. I’m pretty sure all he does is mask them for the whole procedure. Occasionally I think he’ll use ketamine and Valium but I’m pretty sure he largely relies on the mask... poor puppies 🙁
 
alissa14 said:
I wanted to comment because I found this whole discussion very interesting.

1. The one vet recently told me a horror story about a headstrong technician who discharged a patient without her approval. The patient apparently had some major, weird complications and died later on. I don’t remember the exact circumstances. I’m not a tech, I’m an assistant (bottom of the totem pole so I know my place lol) but headstrong techs aren’t definitely a thing. IMO, if techs are giving anyone a hard time about their protocols, I agree with everyone who said stick to your guns. I just wanted to comment my story because it made me think of that.
2. I wouldn’t say my clinic REGULARLY gases down cats. We mainly do it if a cat is very aggressive and we can’t examine them without sedation or we have shave downs that come in a few times a year the needed to be tanked down. I didn’t realize this was a controversy? Granted the doctor I work with graduated in the late 90’s. Not exactly old school but not exactly fresh grad either. Can someone explain for my own curiosity why it’s controversial and how it can be harmful?
3. The discussion regarding tanking also makes me think of the REALLY old school vet who uses our surgical suite from time to time. He’s like in his 70’s and is basically retired but will still do ear crops (gross) for a couple of clients. I always feel bad for the schnauzers and the Brussels griffons that he does. I’m pretty sure all he does is mask them for the whole procedure. Occasionally I think he’ll use ketamine and Valium but I’m pretty sure he largely relies on the mask... poor puppies 🙁
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from the AAFP anesthesia guidelines:

“Chamber inductions should never be routine but rather a ‘last resort’ and only when other approaches have failed. Transferring the cat to an anesthetic induction chamber (many cats can be transferred by placing the open end of the carrier over the top of the chamber) allows the administration of an inhalant anesthetic without having to touch the cat.

Chamber induction in unpremedicated, agitated cats is the least desirable technique described in these Guidelines, since an agitated cat will require more inhalant anesthetic to achieve the desired endpoint. This increased inhalant anesthetic requirement results in severe depression of the cardiovascular system. Additionally, there is an increased release of catecholamines that predispose the cat to the development of cardiac arrhythmias.”

also the amount of gas anesthesia waste that personnel is exposed to is very high with this approach as there is a high volume of a high concentration that is released when you open the chamber.

also, from your description... I would consider that regular usage... if you use it as your sedation protocol. It really should be a very rare exception for all of your sedated procedures. Not we only use it if the cat needs sedation.
 
alissa14 said:
I wanted to comment because I found this whole discussion very interesting.

1. The one vet recently told me a horror story about a headstrong technician who discharged a patient without her approval. The patient apparently had some major, weird complications and died later on. I don’t remember the exact circumstances. I’m not a tech, I’m an assistant (bottom of the totem pole so I know my place lol) but headstrong techs aren’t definitely a thing. IMO, if techs are giving anyone a hard time about their protocols, I agree with everyone who said stick to your guns. I just wanted to comment my story because it made me think of that.
2. I wouldn’t say my clinic REGULARLY gases down cats. We mainly do it if a cat is very aggressive and we can’t examine them without sedation or we have shave downs that come in a few times a year the needed to be tanked down. I didn’t realize this was a controversy? Granted the doctor I work with graduated in the late 90’s. Not exactly old school but not exactly fresh grad either. Can someone explain for my own curiosity why it’s controversial and how it can be harmful?
3. The discussion regarding tanking also makes me think of the REALLY old school vet who uses our surgical suite from time to time. He’s like in his 70’s and is basically retired but will still do ear crops (gross) for a couple of clients. I always feel bad for the schnauzers and the Brussels griffons that he does. I’m pretty sure all he does is mask them for the whole procedure. Occasionally I think he’ll use ketamine and Valium but I’m pretty sure he largely relies on the mask... poor puppies 🙁
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to your second point, it’s delivering an uncontrolled amount of vapor to the patient. Inhalant is the biggest driver of hypotension so if you’re blasting inhalant there’s times where that could result in increased mortality. I’ve seen animals get deep FAST with inhalant on 2 so it’s easy to see how that could happen. Plus the waste gasses are dangerous to staff. I agree there’s a time and place for it—as with exotics and some cat cases, and as with most “older” techniques from time to time—but it’s shouldn’t be a standard.

edit: ninja!!
 
alissa14 said:
I wanted to comment because I found this whole discussion very interesting.

1. The one vet recently told me a horror story about a headstrong technician who discharged a patient without her approval. The patient apparently had some major, weird complications and died later on. I don’t remember the exact circumstances. I’m not a tech, I’m an assistant (bottom of the totem pole so I know my place lol) but headstrong techs aren’t definitely a thing. IMO, if techs are giving anyone a hard time about their protocols, I agree with everyone who said stick to your guns. I just wanted to comment my story because it made me think of that.
2. I wouldn’t say my clinic REGULARLY gases down cats. We mainly do it if a cat is very aggressive and we can’t examine them without sedation or we have shave downs that come in a few times a year the needed to be tanked down. I didn’t realize this was a controversy? Granted the doctor I work with graduated in the late 90’s. Not exactly old school but not exactly fresh grad either. Can someone explain for my own curiosity why it’s controversial and how it can be harmful?
3. The discussion regarding tanking also makes me think of the REALLY old school vet who uses our surgical suite from time to time. He’s like in his 70’s and is basically retired but will still do ear crops (gross) for a couple of clients. I always feel bad for the schnauzers and the Brussels griffons that he does. I’m pretty sure all he does is mask them for the whole procedure. Occasionally I think he’ll use ketamine and Valium but I’m pretty sure he largely relies on the mask... poor puppies 🙁
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Re: gassing down, it can be very stressful for the animal and it's easy for them to get too deep or have anesthetic complications. It also takes longer, which basically prolongs the time you have to wait before you can secure an airway in a patient, which can be dangerous.

You'll hear talk of multimodal anesthesia in vet school, which basically means using multiple agents in the anesthetic protocol. A large part of the reasoning behind this is that using multiple agents means that you have to use less of each individual agent overall to achieve the effect you want, which can reduce lots of the worse complications that we tend to see when you give high doses of a single agent. One of the things injectables etc can do is decrease the amount of gas you need to use to keep a patient under.

Inhalant anesthesia can cause a lot of depression of cardiac and respiratory function (basically you walk a fine line between them being useful and them being extremely dangerous) so it's helpful to reduce how much of it you absolutely have to use in your patient, especially if they're compromised in any way.

Inhalants also don't provide any pain control after the procedure (during procedures they prevent conscious awareness of pain) - so if you are using them for your procedure and providing nothing after then your patient will also be painful depending on your surgery.
 
I appreciate hearing what everyone has to say! As someone who is still considered a pre vet student, I LOVE learning all about this stuff. Sure I could look it up on the internet but I like hearing it from the source 🙂
 
DVMDream said:
Sorry, missed the routinely part. My apologies.
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No worries.

I think one thing that we all learn if we’ve been in it long enough is that there are very few situations where we would truly mean it when we say “always” and “never” in this profession.

it’s more accurately “always strive to” and “strive to never.” This is one of those things.
In this case, it makes me sad when people don’t even care to try
 
I need to rant about foster people.

Don't get me wrong, I love fostering. I've fostered a good number of cats before and I grew up in a household that routinely fostered shelter cats. But there are some truly ignorant foster people.

In the past, it's really just been a few fosters who have ringworm or fleas completely contaminating their whole house but the rescue still lets them perpetually foster multiple cats at a time and then all the cats adopted out of there inevitably have ringworm or fleas.

Today was a new low, though. Lady brings in a feral cat she's been fostering for three or four months. Had bite wounds of unknown origin when she first trapped it. Now it has increasingly severe neurological symptoms. Vet advises euthanasia but head needs to be sent out for rabies testing. Foster doesn't really understand why (despite lengthy explanation) but hesitatingly goes along with it. Contacted rescue to verify euthanasia and rabies testing. OKed euthanasia, then heard "rabies testing" and said absolutely no way, "can't spend that kind of money for no good reason." Cue back and forth calls between vet, foster, and rescue. Conclusion rescue came to is "send it home with the foster and we'll make a decision tomorrow." !!! Vet told them that is insane, she will never send home a possibly rabid cat. Cat can stay the night in the hospital for free.

Vet makes her final call to the foster. Vet asks if cat ever bit anyone. Foster casually says "yeah, she bit me a few times since I got her." !!!!! She never cared to mention this to us, nor took it seriously when vet told her just how serious that is. Foster says "I lost feeling in the hand she bit so I'm going to get surgery on that wrist once kitten season slows down." !!!!!!!!

Vet called rescue back and told them "if that lady dies from rabies, that's on your hands, not mine." Rescue still decided to wait until tomorrow to "make a decision" about rabies testing vs not.

I'm just glad I got a bad feeling when the cat first came in (before any of this started) and I told my boss I would not be getting anywhere near that cat.
 
vetmedhead said:
Inhalants also don't provide any pain control after the procedure (during procedures they prevent conscious awareness of pain) - so if you are using them for your procedure and providing nothing after then your patient will also be painful depending on your surgery.
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But even during the procedure, the body physiologically responds to the pain which is important anesthetically during the procedure, and can have lasting effects through windup pain, even if you provide analgesia postop. Outside of rare exceptions, there’s really no excuse for not utilizing intraop analgesia. Pet peeve of mine. You should have to be talked out of intraop analgesia with very good reason, not talked into it. Torb/ace with inhalant with no other analgesia on board type thing for painful procedures make me so sad for the patient. Especially because analgesia can be added without much additional cost to the clinic. I just don’t understand it when people don’t. Seriously why? (Not directed at you specifically as I have no idea what you do or don’t do with anesthesia, but I see it all the time and I just don’t get it).
 
Aprilthearab said:
I need to rant about foster people.

Don't get me wrong, I love fostering. I've fostered a good number of cats before and I grew up in a household that routinely fostered shelter cats. But there are some truly ignorant foster people.

In the past, it's really just been a few fosters who have ringworm or fleas completely contaminating their whole house but the rescue still lets them perpetually foster multiple cats at a time and then all the cats adopted out of there inevitably have ringworm or fleas.

Today was a new low, though. Lady brings in a feral cat she's been fostering for three or four months. Had bite wounds of unknown origin when she first trapped it. Now it has increasingly severe neurological symptoms. Vet advises euthanasia but head needs to be sent out for rabies testing. Foster doesn't really understand why (despite lengthy explanation) but hesitatingly goes along with it. Contacted rescue to verify euthanasia and rabies testing. OKed euthanasia, then heard "rabies testing" and said absolutely no way, "can't spend that kind of money for no good reason." Cue back and forth calls between vet, foster, and rescue. Conclusion rescue came to is "send it home with the foster and we'll make a decision tomorrow." !!! Vet told them that is insane, she will never send home a possibly rabid cat. Cat can stay the night in the hospital for free.

Vet makes her final call to the foster. Vet asks if cat ever bit anyone. Foster casually says "yeah, she bit me a few times since I got her." !!!!! She never cared to mention this to us, nor took it seriously when vet told her just how serious that is. Foster says "I lost feeling in the hand she bit so I'm going to get surgery on that wrist once kitten season slows down." !!!!!!!!

Vet called rescue back and told them "if that lady dies from rabies, that's on your hands, not mine." Rescue still decided to wait until tomorrow to "make a decision" about rabies testing vs not.

I'm just glad I got a bad feeling when the cat first came in (before any of this started) and I told my boss I would not be getting anywhere near that cat.
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one thing I’ve learned since being deeply involved with rescue and shelter work since I was 16-17... is that the rescue world is largely made up of bat **** crazy and/or ignorant people with a savior complex with a smattering of reasonable compassionate humans in the mix. So my bar is set super low as far as **** that they do or don’t do. Many have a really hard time grasping the concept of rabies and aggression, and make really stupid decisions around these issues.
 
Aprilthearab said:
I need to rant about foster people.

Don't get me wrong, I love fostering. I've fostered a good number of cats before and I grew up in a household that routinely fostered shelter cats. But there are some truly ignorant foster people.

In the past, it's really just been a few fosters who have ringworm or fleas completely contaminating their whole house but the rescue still lets them perpetually foster multiple cats at a time and then all the cats adopted out of there inevitably have ringworm or fleas.

Today was a new low, though. Lady brings in a feral cat she's been fostering for three or four months. Had bite wounds of unknown origin when she first trapped it. Now it has increasingly severe neurological symptoms. Vet advises euthanasia but head needs to be sent out for rabies testing. Foster doesn't really understand why (despite lengthy explanation) but hesitatingly goes along with it. Contacted rescue to verify euthanasia and rabies testing. OKed euthanasia, then heard "rabies testing" and said absolutely no way, "can't spend that kind of money for no good reason." Cue back and forth calls between vet, foster, and rescue. Conclusion rescue came to is "send it home with the foster and we'll make a decision tomorrow." !!! Vet told them that is insane, she will never send home a possibly rabid cat. Cat can stay the night in the hospital for free.

Vet makes her final call to the foster. Vet asks if cat ever bit anyone. Foster casually says "yeah, she bit me a few times since I got her." !!!!! She never cared to mention this to us, nor took it seriously when vet told her just how serious that is. Foster says "I lost feeling in the hand she bit so I'm going to get surgery on that wrist once kitten season slows down." !!!!!!!!

Vet called rescue back and told them "if that lady dies from rabies, that's on your hands, not mine." Rescue still decided to wait until tomorrow to "make a decision" about rabies testing vs not.

I'm just glad I got a bad feeling when the cat first came in (before any of this started) and I told my boss I would not be getting anywhere near that cat.
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um... wow. I’m just glad you never touched the cat.

we have a local rescuer who is notorious for taking parvo puppies to the emergency clinic and crowdfunding exorbitant amounts to fix them. Thing is, they all catch parvo in the same place.... her house. It’s big oof.
 
Also reminds me of last month when I happily stuck my bare finger down a neurologic kitten’s throat to test for a gag, only to realize seconds later :smack: thankfully it ended up not being a problem
 
itsrocky said:
Also reminds me of last month when I happily stuck my bare finger down a neurologic kitten’s throat to test for a gag, only to realize seconds later :smack: thankfully it ended up not being a problem
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early on, I took home a flea covered flea allergy and naked stray cat with hyperesthesia that ACO brought in without thinking about it. I was thinking Feline hyperesthesia with a treatable trigger, hoping maybe I would be able to solve the cat’s problems and adopt it out.

well... I wasn’t thinking hyperesthesia as a possible neurologic symptom of rabies... until my husband called me panicked that he came home and the cat was falling over and staggering. I screamed into the phone for him to get the **** out of the room, that I don’t care what is happening to the cat at the moment or even if she dies before I get home. He was not to open that door again. Like ffs, one of my staff was scratched by this cat and it still hadn’t dawned on me. And she had wounds!!! (I was convinced they were self trauma from the hyperesthesia as I literally saw her chew at her own butt and tail in a fit... but I sure don’t know that for sure)

That was one of the very few cats I gassed down to anesthetize when I euthanized her. Thankfully she tested negative, but she sure did have something neurologically ****ed up going on. I was so scared waiting for those results. The cat was initially found by children before ACO picked her up. I felt so stupid.
 
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Minnerbelle said:
But even during the procedure, the body physiologically responds to the pain which is important anesthetically during the procedure, and can have lasting effects through windup pain, even if you provide analgesia postop. Outside of rare exceptions, there’s really no excuse for not utilizing intraop analgesia. Pet peeve of mine. You should have to be talked out of intraop analgesia with very good reason, not talked into it. Torb/ace with inhalant with no other analgesia on board type thing for painful procedures make me so sad for the patient. Especially because analgesia can be added without much additional cost to the clinic. I just don’t understand it when people don’t. Seriously why? (Not directed at you specifically as I have no idea what you do or don’t do with anesthesia, but I see it all the time and I just don’t get it).
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I was going to mention this and thought my comment had already gotten too long, but I'm glad you bring it up because it's an important point. 🙂 Definitely agree that intraop analgesia is a huge necessity and you can get much much much better patient outcomes if you keep them from getting painful in the first place. I think about it a lot because I'll sometimes see other students make more "modern" anesthesia protocols that are basically midazolam/propofol/rock and roll and the anesthesiologists have to gently remind them to add pain control in there too
 
Aprilthearab said:
I need to rant about foster people.

Don't get me wrong, I love fostering. I've fostered a good number of cats before and I grew up in a household that routinely fostered shelter cats. But there are some truly ignorant foster people.

In the past, it's really just been a few fosters who have ringworm or fleas completely contaminating their whole house but the rescue still lets them perpetually foster multiple cats at a time and then all the cats adopted out of there inevitably have ringworm or fleas.

Today was a new low, though. Lady brings in a feral cat she's been fostering for three or four months. Had bite wounds of unknown origin when she first trapped it. Now it has increasingly severe neurological symptoms. Vet advises euthanasia but head needs to be sent out for rabies testing. Foster doesn't really understand why (despite lengthy explanation) but hesitatingly goes along with it. Contacted rescue to verify euthanasia and rabies testing. OKed euthanasia, then heard "rabies testing" and said absolutely no way, "can't spend that kind of money for no good reason." Cue back and forth calls between vet, foster, and rescue. Conclusion rescue came to is "send it home with the foster and we'll make a decision tomorrow." !!! Vet told them that is insane, she will never send home a possibly rabid cat. Cat can stay the night in the hospital for free.

Vet makes her final call to the foster. Vet asks if cat ever bit anyone. Foster casually says "yeah, she bit me a few times since I got her." !!!!! She never cared to mention this to us, nor took it seriously when vet told her just how serious that is. Foster says "I lost feeling in the hand she bit so I'm going to get surgery on that wrist once kitten season slows down." !!!!!!!!

Vet called rescue back and told them "if that lady dies from rabies, that's on your hands, not mine." Rescue still decided to wait until tomorrow to "make a decision" about rabies testing vs not.

I'm just glad I got a bad feeling when the cat first came in (before any of this started) and I told my boss I would not be getting anywhere near that cat.
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Having worked for years with an animal control agency, yikes. FWIW if your clinic had reported that to whatever animal welfare organization serves your area, they almost certainly would have taken that cat for quarantine and euthanized it for testing based on clinical signs.

Foster and rescue people be cray, though. Have had more than one foster/rescue end up busted for hoarding (by US!!! omg) and several others we blacklisted because the animals did so poorly in their care and we had no idea wtf they were doing that made the animals do so poorly.
Minnerbelle said:
one thing I’ve learned since being deeply involved with rescue and shelter work since I was 16-17... is that the rescue world is largely made up of bat **** crazy and/or ignorant people with a savior complex with a smattering of reasonable compassionate humans in the mix. So my bar is set super low as far as **** that they do or don’t do. Many have a really hard time grasping the concept of rabies and aggression, and make really stupid decisions around these issues.
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Oh man the stories I could tell. One lady sends capslock emails about how animal control is genociding all of the animals in the city to the police chief, the assistant police chiefs, the mayor, all of city council, and the city veterinarian like... 3-4x a week at this point.

Rescue people have perfected the fine art of cray.
 
vetmedhead said:
I was going to mention this and thought my comment had already gotten too long, but I'm glad you bring it up because it's an important point. 🙂 Definitely agree that intraop analgesia is a huge necessity and you can get much much much better patient outcomes if you keep them from getting painful in the first place. I think about it a lot because I'll sometimes see other students make more "modern" anesthesia protocols that are basically midazolam/propofol/rock and roll and the anesthesiologists have to gently remind them to add pain control in there too
Click to expand...
Ahaha “modern” protocols.

I typically consider a combination of a full mu agonist (or at the very least bupe), ket, alpha-2 agonist, cerenia, nsaid, and local block for for any painful procedure + CRI if really painful. I specifically need to talk myself out of each thing. These patients can’t talk and will never be able to tell you what they experienced or remember from their experience so I give them benefit of doubt.
 
After my time in the hospital, where I specifically would tell my care takers “hey, I’m in a lot of pain” and one looked me in me in the eye and said “well I don’t know what I can do for that” when the only thing I was on was a muscle relaxer and a NSAID I’ll always take pain seriously.
 
itsrocky said:
um... wow. I’m just glad you never touched the cat.

we have a local rescuer who is notorious for taking parvo puppies to the emergency clinic and crowdfunding exorbitant amounts to fix them. Thing is, they all catch parvo in the same place.... her house. It’s big oof.
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The place I work once ended up with 5 parvo puppies at once because they were all transported from another state in the same van :smack:
 
After I made that post last night I thought of another foster horror story.

This was about a year ago so I don't remember the details very well. The head of the rescue was fostering this puppy that was suddenly extremely lethargic and vomiting, temperature of 107 something. Radiographs came back clean. Had exactly 0 white blood cells. Negative Parvo test. Foster insisted the dog never got into anything. There was a lot more in the in-between that I can't remember. Our vets were stumped and told her to take it to a hospital that could provide more intensive care than our general practice, rescue declined because of the cost. He was with us for a few days on supportive care though the vets desperately wanted to do more than that for him. The vets consulted a specialist who said the only two possibilities are some kind of bone marrow disease or the dog got into chemotherapy drugs. They figured the latter was ridiculous so they started prepping to take bone marrow samples.

They called the foster to let her know what they were doing and gave her a quick run down of what the specialist said and told her they were prepping for bone marrow samples. Then she said "Wait, chemotherapy drugs can do that? He ate some of them." Turns out there were chemotherapy drugs donated to the rescue and the puppy got into them and ate four tablets meant for a large adult dog!!! And the foster did not care to mention it ONCE during the three days he was hospitalized and we were testing for everything under the sun. She specifically said "no" when we asked her if he got into anything when he was admitted.

The vets finally convinced her to admit the puppy somewhere else for intensive care. Unfortunately he passed away there a week or two later.

Really sad case. Even when he was feeling like total crap and unable to walk, he would be wagging his tail and trying to cuddle with us.
 
itsrocky said:
After my time in the hospital, where I specifically would tell my care takers “hey, I’m in a lot of pain” and one looked me in me in the eye and said “well I don’t know what I can do for that” when the only thing I was on was a muscle relaxer and a NSAID I’ll always take pain seriously.
Click to expand...
I feel the same after I broke my arm badly (+ a few ribs and a dislocated collarbone) last year. That **** HURTS, although my doctors were on the opposite end of the spectrum and just wanted to toss tons of opioids at me. A combo of icing/NSAIDs/Tylenol/opioids was much more useful for controlling pain than opioids alone, so I'm glad I decided to do that despite being told to just do the opioids. I'm was already a big believer in pain medicine before that but I've just doubled down (and especially on multimodal pain management) since then.
 
vetmedhead said:
I feel the same after I broke my arm badly (+ a few ribs and a dislocated collarbone) last year. That **** HURTS, although my doctors were on the opposite end of the spectrum and just wanted to toss tons of opioids at me. A combo of icing/NSAIDs/Tylenol/opioids was much more useful for controlling pain than opioids alone, so I'm glad I decided to do that despite being told to just do the opioids. I'm was already a big believer in pain medicine before that but I've just doubled down (and especially on multimodal pain management) since then.
Click to expand...

I think it was because I was stuck in a town with an opioid crisis. I felt judged pretty much the whole time, but especially when I vocalized being painful. Any time I straight up asked for a change in pain management they would just give me less. Like, I asked for pain meds, not for opioids specifically. Like a lidocaine patch would have probably done the trick. Idk. They also thought a low fentanyl bolus was good long term management.
 
All this discussion make me think about something that happened at my clinic not long before I started working there. I don’t remember the exact circumstances. Basically someone had brought in a kitten that had bitten her son and wasn’t acting right. The doctor noticed neurological issues and was concerned about possible rabies. Explained this to the person and gave options including euthanasia and rabies testing. This person elected euthanasia and testing. Somehow a rescue that was connected to the kitten I don’t remember how whether these people had adopted the kitten from them or what, caught wind that the doctor had euthanized the kitten and decided to start a smear campaign against the clinic and the doctor. People called daily with angry calls saying that the doctor’s license should be revoked and the clinic should shut down, how dare we euthanize an innocent kitten who we didn’t even know if it had rabies. Bad reviews by people who had never been there were also left online. It was bad. It’s sad because it’s this mob mentality that drives so many in our profession to suicide. Thankfully, my doctor is alive and well and our clinic is thriving, but I’ve heard of stories where angry rescues/people/clients led to a much darker ending
 
alissa14 said:
All this discussion make me think about something that happened at my clinic not long before I started working there. I don’t remember the exact circumstances. Basically someone had brought in a kitten that had bitten her son and wasn’t acting right. The doctor noticed neurological issues and was concerned about possible rabies. Explained this to the person and gave options including euthanasia and rabies testing. This person elected euthanasia and testing. Somehow a rescue that was connected to the kitten I don’t remember how whether these people had adopted the kitten from them or what, caught wind that the doctor had euthanized the kitten and decided to start a smear campaign against the clinic and the doctor. People called daily with angry calls saying that the doctor’s license should be revoked and the clinic should shut down, how dare we euthanize an innocent kitten who we didn’t even know if it had rabies. Bad reviews by people who had never been there were also left online. It was bad. It’s sad because it’s this mob mentality that drives so many in our profession to suicide. Thankfully, my doctor is alive and well and our clinic is thriving, but I’ve heard of stories where angry rescues/people/clients led to a much darker ending
Click to expand...
The most frustrating part is that most of those people probably didn't even read the whole story before jumping on the hate-the-vet bandwagon. Everyone needs to remember why vets and their employees are here in the first place, and that's because of our love of animals.
 
PippyPony said:
Ah crap I just forgot to do the *67 thing despite that long discussion on here the other day. :smack:
Click to expand...

Is there not just a setting on your phone? Like I've just changed the settings in my phone so that my number doesn't display when I call people

There's no way I'd remember to dial extra digits every time :laugh:
 
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