She is just plain cray cray. Period.
Let's see. Her basic gripe is that the ER is too expensive and that they didn't offer options. She used the phrase "all or nothing," and argued that they should be finding ways to meet the client's needs.
So what are - by her own admission - the facts? Client presents to ER, ER dx's pyometra, ER offers gold-standard care of surgery for $4-$5 (same as what it would cost me to offer it to a client). Client can't afford. So does the ER <ACTUALLY> go "all or nothing"? Nope, they come up with an alternative - SQ fluids and start abx so the lady can follow up for cheaper care. Which is what happened. And the dog lived (at least, so far).
So what she's bitching the ER should have done .........
........ is exactly what they did. Ta da!
And btw, it's unfair to compare her $900 price to the ER $4000-$5000 price. The ER already dx'd the problem - that cost the exam fee plus radiographs (plus maybe blood work if the ER did that, too). In my hospital, exam+blood+rads is $700+. So if the ER did all that for her, her $900 price is really $1600. The ER's price also would have included continued overnight recovery care - several hundred that her $900 price didn't include. She is being INCREDIBLY unfair by trying to claim that she dealt with the problem for 4-5x less than the ER. Stunningly unfair.
What a weirdo fruitcake special princess she is....
I've done what that ER did many (many, many, many....) times. And before some argues "hospitalize and supportive care and then transfer - don't just send them home" .... hospitalizing ALONE eats up another several hundred (beyond the many hundred it cost me just to dx the problem to begin with), and could potentially mean the client doesn't have money left over for surgery. So in that ER's shoes, I'd do the same darn thing. A bit of supportive care, roll the dice and send the patient home and hope their pDVM can do the Sx first thing 'morrow.
But what's that? Oh yeah, in another video she bitches about ERs using up all of a client's money on dx with no money left over for tx.
So again - ER did exactly what she's wanting them to do: ER dx'd the problem, offered gold standard care, found another solution that preserved funds so the dog could get treated. Didn't burn up all the money on overnight supportive care. And the dog lived. Everyone wins. Except the ER, who gets roasted for doing their job really damn well.
People like to talk about our higher cost needs, and that's all totally legit. We have endoscopes and arthroscopes and CTs and MRIs and square footage devoted to nothing but chemotherapy/oncology. If it's slow we don't get to send home staff to conserve money - we have to pay them to sit on their ass and watch a movie or sleep.
But one thing people forget to include is that quite honestly: We deserve to get paid more on a minute-by-minute basis. Not because we're better than the GP folks (we aren't), but because we're paying a higher price with our own health.
There is a MOUNTAIN of evidence about just how awful overnight work is for you.
So to my way of thinking, that calls for getting paid more. We are literally jeopardizing our health just to be available at 2AM for some stupid owner that didn't spay their dog when it was a puppy, ignored the two or three weeks of lethargy leading up to the crisis, and now wants us to fix their pyometra dog for a few bucks and a wink and a nod. So yes, we deserve to be compensated more than the same staff performing that function during the day.
Anyway. She can go take a very long hike off a very short pier. I'd feel sorry for her because she's clearly deranged, but ... that's kinda like feeling sorry for a crazy guy who hits you over the head with a rock. No matter how much you intellectually understand that it was the crazy causing it, you just aren't going to forgive the crazy guy anytime soon. That's where I'm at with her. She's unfair, irrational, and cruel, and she deserves nothing but condemnation for her unprofessional behavior.
