Veterinary Medical Errors

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Maddiegirl

Maddiegirl

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Very interesting article....

I wish that article would have included more stats on the number of mistakes and the severity of the mistakes. According to the article, more mistakes have been reported in recent years, as compared to earlier years. I wonder if this has to do with our changing societal view on pets, such that more recently pets are viewed as "family members" as opposed to "animals owned by a family." I wouldn't been surprised if the number of actual mistakes is similar to previous years, but the number of mistakes that actually gets reported is higher than previous years due to a high emotional attachment and view of a pet as a family member.

I do agree that veterinary medicine is lagging behind human medicine in its ability catch and learn from mistakes. In human medicine there are often multiple doctors, nurses, as well as the insurance companies involved in treatment, whereas with animals it is often just a vet, or a vet and a technician involved in the treatment.
 
Can't even begin to tell you how many mistakes the vets I work for make on a daily basis... then they try and brush it off like its not big deal.

They are AWFUL veterinarians though, and sadly, even worse people...
 
Definitely an interesting article, however, at least in my experience at a very high volume, 23 doctor practice, I am not surprised the state boards dismiss most complaints, because most of the ones we get are completely ridiculous and would never hold up in court or to the board. If people want to start getting emotional damage compensation and start treating veterinary medicine more like human medicine, that will mean that if they decline diagnostics and treatments, they will have to sign against medical advice, and vets will be able to hold owners negligent and hold them legally accountable for not providing adequate care as well. If crazy owners want to truly treat pets like family, they will have to deal with the many negative aspects of human medicine and be prepared to pay a LOT more for care, as they do in human medicine. Veterinarians will not be able to stay in business if we move further towards human medicine because 99% of clients will not be able or willing to pay for care. Yes, human doctors are held more accountable for mistakes than veterinarians, but with that comes a lot of cost and a lot of paperwork.
 
And also malpractice insurance will SKYROCKET, also putting veterinarians out of business. I truly believe that if any of those legal changes actually happen they have the potential to completely ruin the field of vet med, both for professionals and for pets and their owners.
 
I have also witnessed a lot of vet mistakes in the practices that I have volunteered for. However amny of them were mistakes made by vet-tech and resulted from the vet not checking their work. I heard a story about a vet that asked one of his techs to bring him the old greyhound in back for euthanasia. The vet euthanised him and later discovered that it was the wronfg dog. The tech was fired, but the vet still works. Is this right? I have also witnessed a vet giving the wrong dose of euthanasia med. If there are any ways to increase accountability without increasing malpractice insurance I'm sure it would be well recieved. However I dont know how this is possible. I know a vet that had to pay 2 million in a malpractice suit in CA for a mistake that was not his fault. He is a great vet and now practices here in CO. Getting sue happy is not the way to fix the problem.
 
It seems like there's a pretty substantial protective screen around vets, at least legally. At my current job, we've had at least 4 or 5 deaths in the last year that resulted from incorrect dosing, over-restraint and preventable anesthesia / surgical complications.

While the doctors involved are excellent in almost every other instance, the lack of accountability is fairly alarming. Generally, the owners are given incomplete or inaccurate information about the circumstances of the incident, up to and including blatant lies. There is also a fairly scary trend towards 'blame the tech,' even if the problem lies far beyond their scope or responsibilities.

The only time I've ever seen a doctor actually held accountable for a mistake was in this case, which was more of an ethical error than a legitimate mistake:

http://articles.mcall.com/2006-04-28/news/3672194_1_euthanized-veterinarians-annie

This was my old boss, who faked a euthanasia with domitor and got off with a six month suspension, while the other doctor involved was given only a written reprimand.

I think the real problem is in lack of oversight. There is no local or state agency that automatically reviews mistaken deaths or suspicious cases. And beyond that, even if an issue is raised with a supervisory group, the penalties are almost non-existent.
 
krist said:
Definitely an interesting article, however, at least in my experience at a very high volume, 23 doctor practice, I am not surprised the state boards dismiss most complaints, because most of the ones we get are completely ridiculous and would never hold up in court or to the board. If people want to start getting emotional damage compensation and start treating veterinary medicine more like human medicine, that will mean that if they decline diagnostics and treatments, they will have to sign against medical advice, and vets will be able to hold owners negligent and hold them legally accountable for not providing adequate care as well. If crazy owners want to truly treat pets like family, they will have to deal with the many negative aspects of human medicine and be prepared to pay a LOT more for care, as they do in human medicine. Veterinarians will not be able to stay in business if we move further towards human medicine because 99% of clients will not be able or willing to pay for care. Yes, human doctors are held more accountable for mistakes than veterinarians, but with that comes a lot of cost and a lot of paperwork.
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You nailed it!

This is exactly how I felt when reading the article. The idea of the headache that accompanies the paperwork, dealing with insurance companies, and the insane malpractice insurance is precisely what deters me from becoming a human doctor. Not to mention I prefer furry, four-legged patients.
 
Dsmoody23 said:
The only time I've ever seen a doctor actually held accountable for a mistake was in this case, which was more of an ethical error than a legitimate mistake:

http://articles.mcall.com/2006-04-28/news/3672194_1_euthanized-veterinarians-annie

This was my old boss, who faked a euthanasia with domitor and got off with a six month suspension, while the other doctor involved was given only a written reprimand.
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This is horrible!! I cannot believe what the owners must have gone through. I think if a vet has a problem performing a euthanasia they should decline, and not try to pull off a "rescue"... wow.
 
I have a few thoughts...

*Definitely don't want the answer to be law suits. That really doesn't benefit anyone.
* But.... I do think the profession needs to consider cleaning up some of the thinking. Without a financial incentive some preventable errors recur. As much as I can't stand a lot of human medicine -especially now that I see how it works firsthand - most practices follow more regimented procedures that eliminate a lot of - but not all of - simple errors. Wrong drugs, wrong surgery performed etc. Especially in smaller clinics, there is a certain laxity that I find dangerous. I honestly don't know enough about the vet boards but I would hope that they investigate more and provide remediation (to allow improvement without losing the vet). Why not have them learn ways to avoid the errors in the future. I generally like the idea of a little more self-policing.
* The worst part of that article was reading through the comment section. A lot of ignorance and a lot of anger. Makes me think that there is not enough communication going on. A lot of people seem to equate death equals error and we know that is not normally the case.

Anyway, just my thoughts. Maybe if I ever make it through and become one of the hated vets myself I can see if my head is up my *ss or not.
 
krist said:
Definitely an interesting article, however, at least in my experience at a very high volume, 23 doctor practice, I am not surprised the state boards dismiss most complaints, because most of the ones we get are completely ridiculous and would never hold up in court or to the board. If people want to start getting emotional damage compensation and start treating veterinary medicine more like human medicine, that will mean that if they decline diagnostics and treatments, they will have to sign against medical advice, and vets will be able to hold owners negligent and hold them legally accountable for not providing adequate care as well. If crazy owners want to truly treat pets like family, they will have to deal with the many negative aspects of human medicine and be prepared to pay a LOT more for care, as they do in human medicine. Veterinarians will not be able to stay in business if we move further towards human medicine because 99% of clients will not be able or willing to pay for care. Yes, human doctors are held more accountable for mistakes than veterinarians, but with that comes a lot of cost and a lot of paperwork.
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👍 I think this sums up how I feel about it as well.
 
I agree that there needs to be some improvement, but I do not think litigation is the answer. I also agree that death does not mean a mistake occurred.

A lot of the mistakes I've seen happen with inexperienced, poorly supervised minimum wage staff. The vet ultimately needs to step in and double check the important things like what medication, how much is being administered, and certainly which limb requires surgery. When laziness and finger pointing prevail (blame the tech) mistakes are inevitable. Pair that with a general lack of consequence and it's a recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, if every complaint received a review by the medical board it would get ridiculous very quickly. I'm not sure what the answer is, but whatever the solution is there must be a balanced approach.
 
Personally, I have seen a lot of things in the clinic that could potentially lead to something serious. In this case, the doctors are just doing what they learned in school 20 or 30 odd years ago and have not kept on their education.

In some ways, the practices in human medicine are just insane. I would not be surprised if skipping one tiny step in certain procedures will increase the chances of something bad happening by 0.00000001 percent. Can you imagine a vet putting gloves on every single time they go to touch a patient (like they do in human med)? Really?

The article lacked stats for human medical mistakes. It happens more frequently then one might suspect. I remember reading an article a few years back about how common it is for a pharmacist to misread a prescription and give people the wrong meds.

Krist put is nicely. If you are going to start holding vets responsible for medical mistakes, you should be able to hold owners responsible for neglect.

Even at the best clinics, things are going to go wrong. I volunteered at an accredited hospital. The staff were super anal about keeping charts, knowing exactly when this patient got this amount of this drug, what the anesthesia levels were every 5 minutes during surgery, etc. Really anal. Did not stop a patient from waking up during a neuter. Her reaction? Get him sutured up as soon as possible and try to figure out what went wrong. Do you think she called the owner and said "Your dog started waking up in the middle of surgery." The doctor did all of the right things, but how do you think the owner is going to respond? She is going to hear "waking up in the middle of surgery", freak out.
 
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I personally think that, as painful as it might be to contemplate the idea of 'allowing' a doctor to get away with making a negligent mistake (especially if you're a victim of it) ....

.... we're better off on the whole if we are moderately tolerant of mistakes. I think that there ought to be a demonstrated pattern of negligent behavior before significant action is taken against a doctor - of humans OR animals.

I believe that with some level of tolerance will come an overall better application of care.

I think that there ought to be some attempt to distinguish between a 'mistake' and 'negligence', as difficult as that may be.

I think that malpractice suits, and modifying legal code to allow for greater compensation from veterinary mistakes, would in the long run cause greater harm for animals, and therefore greater distress for animal owners. It will not result in improved health care for animals, which ought to be our primary goal as practitioners. If nothing else, it will ensure a higher cost for clients as vets pay higher insurance premiums, which will reduce client visits to the vet, resulting in less preventative care for animals as well as putting vets out of business. As far as I can tell, everybody loses except perhaps a few lucky malpractice lawsuit winners. And really, those malpractice people lost in some way already at the beginning of the process. So everyone loses.

I have absolutely nothing to back up any of these assertions; they're just the product of my brain considering the issue.
 
Such a troubling issue. Vets, like all humans, are not immune to mistakes, so like LetItSnow, I would hate to see a well-intentioned, compassionate and competent vet lose his/her professional reputation, financial security and confidence because of a lawsuit resulting from a human error of which we are all susceptible.

However, I also think that some vets are just bad apples, and it is disturbing to think of the clients suffering due to easily preventable errors resulting from laziness or simply a lack of caring. At one job, I walked into the ICU to find a dog dead in the run, having choked on vomit following anesthesia because the two doctors were too engrossed in gossiping about the techs that they disliked to notice. I felt that the very devastated owners were entitled to some kind of retribution, though the vets never told them what actually had happened.

I like the idea of consequences setting in if reports of errors or complaints accumulate. Perhaps a three-strikes kind of law.

I once took my dog to a hospital that had video cameras in every treatment and surgery room. Owners could watch everything that happened to their animals while they were being treated in the back. The vet told me that the cameras were a huge hit - owners loved being "included" in the treatment, and staff members were much more careful since they were being monitored. I could think of a million things that could go wrong with that, but I certainly commended the vets for their balls in doing that.
 
LetItSnow said:
I personally think that, as painful as it might be to contemplate the idea of 'allowing' a doctor to get away with making a negligent mistake (especially if you're a victim of it) ....

.... we're better off on the whole if we are moderately tolerant of mistakes. I think that there ought to be a demonstrated pattern of negligent behavior before significant action is taken against a doctor - of humans OR animals.

I believe that with some level of tolerance will come an overall better application of care.

I think that there ought to be some attempt to distinguish between a 'mistake' and 'negligence', as difficult as that may be.

I think that malpractice suits, and modifying legal code to allow for greater compensation from veterinary mistakes, would in the long run cause greater harm for animals, and therefore greater distress for animal owners. It will not result in improved health care for animals, which ought to be our primary goal as practitioners. If nothing else, it will ensure a higher cost for clients as vets pay higher insurance premiums, which will reduce client visits to the vet, resulting in less preventative care for animals as well as putting vets out of business. As far as I can tell, everybody loses except perhaps a few lucky malpractice lawsuit winners. And really, those malpractice people lost in some way already at the beginning of the process. So everyone loses.

I have absolutely nothing to back up any of these assertions; they're just the product of my brain considering the issue.
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👍👍
 
gracietiger said:
I once took my dog to a hospital that had video cameras in every treatment and surgery room. Owners could watch everything that happened to their animals while they were being treated in the back. The vet told me that the cameras were a huge hit - owners loved being "included" in the treatment, and staff members were much more careful since they were being monitored. I could think of a million things that could go wrong with that, but I certainly commended the vets for their balls in doing that.
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What a wonderful, absolutely terrifying idea.

Thinking about that setup, as a nurse, makes me feel vicariously anxious for folks that work that way.

But as a pet owner, I'd be thrilled if that level of transparency was available to me at my clinic.

I think there's a certain amount of callousness (which definitely causes some less than ideal outcomes,) that results from the partitioned practice model. A significant degree of that would be negated by client viewing.

You could make the argument that human medicine has better accountability and oversight due to the constant presence of a patient who can witness and report on the quality of care.
 
Trematode said:
.

Krist put is nicely. If you are going to start holding vets responsible for medical mistakes, you should be able to hold owners responsible for neglect.
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i've had this discussion with some of the vets i work at (large specialty hospital in Dc metro area). the problem with this is that, at least in virginia, as long as the owner seeks medical care for their pet (even for an issue that is the RESULT of neglect) there's nothing the hospital can do in terms of reporting them. (at least, this is what the vets have told me). we've seen several cases come in where it's obvious the animal has been neglected but we couldn't do anything really because they brought their pet in for medical help.
 
gracietiger said:
The vet told me that the cameras were a huge hit - owners loved being "included" in the treatment, and staff members were much more careful since they were being monitored. I could think of a million things that could go wrong with that, but I certainly commended the vets for their balls in doing that.
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Why waste time with technology that you have to pay for and maintain - why not just invite the client back there?

This came up in some other thread; I don't remember when. But anyway, I was talking to a practice owner who has a policy of allowing the owners back for any procedure at all. I brought up the issue of malpractice. Her opinion was that it reduces your risk because when the client is present, two things happen:

First, you perform more professionally. Some of the joking around that becomes distracting goes away. Second, the client gets to see your response to a critical situation. She told a story of a fatal anesthesia incident that just happened to occur in the presence of the owner - who also happened to be a health practitioner in the human world. She said what could have been a very ugly situation turned out quite positively because the owner was able to witness the event and was convinced that the staff handled it correctly - it just didn't have a positive outcome.

Take that fwiw - it's just one vet's opinion. But I found it moderately compelling.
 
I think it is very difficult to allow owners to be present in treatment areas. The hospital with the cameras was a very busy emergency hospital, so I could imagine how owners standing around treatment areas could be very much in the way. Also, another reason for the cameras was that not everyone wants or is able to watch Fluffy get blood drawn, or worse. So it is very comforting to owners to know that cameras are recording everything that happens so that tapes can be reviewed should an unfavorable outcome occur. This makes watching the procedures optional for people uncomfortable with them.

The hospital with the video cameras was not short of business and in an affluent area, so using the technology was little issue to them, I imagine. Of course, such a set up is not possible in all vet facilities.
 
Reverting to the earlier discussion of legal "issues"- if pets became classified under law as more valuable than simple property (and lots of legal mumbo-jumbo followed for vet med), it would be a pretty big deterrent for animal abuse. If vets became liable for injury to animals, everyone else would too (right?)- Micheal Vick would have spent a lot more than 2 years in jail, that's for sure.

I'm not for or against, just something that crossed my mind...
 
Mistakes can be horrible, life-threatening things. I read through a couple of stories about "bad vets" and it seems like a lot of times, communication is the true culprit. It seems like the vets don't communicate prognosis, complications, or treatments very well.

A couple of disjointed thoughts:
1) we had a client in the back today watching a nail trim - they thought it was horrible that we were willing to hold their dog down for a nail trim because of how traumatizing that was. Sometimes I wonder about what clients would think about how we hold for certain procedures (especially with cats).

2) We had a client recently who was holding onto their dog when it jumped out of their arms off the table. He was fine immediately afterwards but then developed a limp later. Came back in the a torn cruciate 1 week later. They told us they knew it wasn't our fault, but were going to try to get a free surgery out of us. Because insurance should cover it....


Whenever I make a mistake (and we're all human, so we make them), I tell the owner immediately. Again, communication is key. Usually, people are understanding if you try to make things right. But mistakes will happen even if you are super-vigilant.
 
sunnex3 said:
i've had this discussion with some of the vets i work at (large specialty hospital in Dc metro area). the problem with this is that, at least in virginia, as long as the owner seeks medical care for their pet (even for an issue that is the RESULT of neglect) there's nothing the hospital can do in terms of reporting them. (at least, this is what the vets have told me). we've seen several cases come in where it's obvious the animal has been neglected but we couldn't do anything really because they brought their pet in for medical help.
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Yes, right now, with our current system, it is very difficult if not impossible to go after owners for neglect or abuse. However, if the system changed to the legal protections the pet owners in the original article wanted, and they want their pets to be treated like human patients, then I would imagine the owners would also more held more accountable. Like parents are for the health and well-being of their children.
 
dyachei said:
A couple of disjointed thoughts:
1) we had a client in the back today watching a nail trim - they thought it was horrible that we were willing to hold their dog down for a nail trim because of how traumatizing that was. Sometimes I wonder about what clients would think about how we hold for certain procedures (especially with cats).
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This is pretty much my thought. You have to really really pick your client as far as letting them "come out the back" goes, and I would never have the videoing thing so that they could watch in the reception. Why? Sometimes its hard enough to convince people that muzzling their dog isnt mean, let alone have them watch us pin their struggling animal to the table for nail trims, or scruff hard their fractious cat for a blood draw. Often times in these situations having the owner present actually makes the animal behave worse, and I shouldn't have to worry about what the owner is thinking of the way i do my job - I'm doing it right, but it doesnt look pretty. Even if you warn the owners of what they might see, for them its still out of context and still doesn't look good. And there is NOTHING more annoying than having an owner interfere with your restraint of a struggling animal.

LetItSnow said:
I personally think that, as painful as it might be to contemplate the idea of 'allowing' a doctor to get away with making a negligent mistake (especially if you're a victim of it) ....

.... we're better off on the whole if we are moderately tolerant of mistakes. I think that there ought to be a demonstrated pattern of negligent behavior before significant action is taken against a doctor - of humans OR animals.

I believe that with some level of tolerance will come an overall better application of care.

I think that there ought to be some attempt to distinguish between a 'mistake' and 'negligence', as difficult as that may be.

I think that malpractice suits, and modifying legal code to allow for greater compensation from veterinary mistakes, would in the long run cause greater harm for animals, and therefore greater distress for animal owners. It will not result in improved health care for animals, which ought to be our primary goal as practitioners. If nothing else, it will ensure a higher cost for clients as vets pay higher insurance premiums, which will reduce client visits to the vet, resulting in less preventative care for animals as well as putting vets out of business. As far as I can tell, everybody loses except perhaps a few lucky malpractice lawsuit winners. And really, those malpractice people lost in some way already at the beginning of the process. So everyone loses.

I have absolutely nothing to back up any of these assertions; they're just the product of my brain considering the issue.
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👍👍

If people want to hold us accountable to a human-medicine level for our mistakes, then the entire profession needs to come up to a human level. Residencies, specialists, different levels of midlevels - and the pay. And owners need to be prepared to pay for this. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
 
I interviewed at one clinic where the treatment area was completely open to the view of clients. They had closed exam rooms, but the exam rooms opened into a central treament area that was right behind the reception desk - look over the receptionists' heads and there was the main treatment table. Surgery & radiology were separate, closed rooms... but the treament room (and ICU cages) were in plan view of the lobby. Additionally, there were no windows or other sound barriers... so every comment made in treatment could be heard in the lobby.

I asked several people, doctors and techs, how they handled restraint of fractious dogs/cats... their argument was that once clients saw their pets fighting and getting stressed, the clients were much more likely to request/authorize sedation for those procedures (which really is better and less stressful for the pets than the use of brute force). This was in a high-income area where people really pamper their pets, so it worked well for them and for the type of client that they were targeting. In a lower-income community, where people fight the cost of sedation, it likely wouldn't work as well!!
 
sunshinevet said:
Often times in these situations having the owner present actually makes the animal behave worse, and I shouldn't have to worry about what the owner is thinking of the way i do my job - I'm doing it right, but it doesnt look pretty.
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I couldn't agree more. I feel like the animal picks up on the owner's apprehension, which in turn, stresses the animal out further bringing out the negative behavior. I'm all for keeping the exam and treatment rooms separate. That said, I'm not sure how I feel about the cameras in the treatment areas. There are definite pros and cons for both sides.
 
When I worked spay/neuter clinics, oftentimes (at least 2-3 out of every 20 cats) would need to be put in a squeeze cage in order to be sedated for surgery (and in order that we, the assistants, were not bitten/clawed/injured). This was safest for all concerned. These pets were angels at their own homes with their owners they knew and trusted (and who never tried to scruff them or do "weird things" to them, of course). At the end of the day, when the owners came to pick up their animals, did we tell them that they had to be put in a squeeze cage? No, we did not. I think it would have been upsetting to the owners to know this and would not serve anyone. Each animal was treated in the best way possible for that particular animal. If we were on camera, the owners whose pets were "squeezed" might never come back to spay/neuter another of their pets. With pets that show signs of aggression, we really do have to take precautionary measures to protect ourselves. I think that's a major difference between veterinary and human medicine. You rarely hear of a human patient biting the doctor.
 
Bisbee said:
When I worked spay/neuter clinics, oftentimes (at least 2-3 out of every 20 cats) would need to be put in a squeeze cage in order to be sedated for surgery (and in order that we, the assistants, were not bitten/clawed/injured). This was safest for all concerned. These pets were angels at their own homes with their owners they knew and trusted (and who never tried to scruff them or do "weird things" to them, of course). At the end of the day, when the owners came to pick up their animals, did we tell them that they had to be put in a squeeze cage? No, we did not. I think it would have been upsetting to the owners to know this and would not serve anyone. Each animal was treated in the best way possible for that particular animal. If we were on camera, the owners whose pets were "squeezed" might never come back to spay/neuter another of their pets. With pets that show signs of aggression, we really do have to take precautionary measures to protect ourselves. I think that's a major difference between veterinary and human medicine. You rarely hear of a human patient biting the doctor.
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You would be surprised how many doctors,nurses, and other medical staff are attacked by patients. I used to work as a phlebotomist, and it was sometimes a daily event that someone was getting punched, kicked, bitten, or stabbed with a needle by a patient. People who have Hep C or HIV can sometimes be very malicious, they try to get you to stick yourself with the needle you have just drawn blood from them with.
 
Velaineil said:
Reverting to the earlier discussion of legal "issues"- if pets became classified under law as more valuable than simple property (and lots of legal mumbo-jumbo followed for vet med), it would be a pretty big deterrent for animal abuse. If vets became liable for injury to animals, everyone else would too (right?)- Micheal Vick would have spent a lot more than 2 years in jail, that's for sure.

I'm not for or against, just something that crossed my mind...
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Children are valued more than property, but that hasn't been a deterrent for child abuse. Just sayin. Making something "more illegal" is not going to make the people who were going to do it anyway not do it.
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
Children are valued more than property, but that hasn't been a deterrent for child abuse. Just sayin. Making something "more illegal" is not going to make the people who were going to do it anyway not do it.
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I am from an area where a woman was fined $12 for drowning a litter of kittens in a bucket. Maybe making it "more illegal" will stop some of those nut jobs out there. :xf:.
 
Just makes them be more careful not to get caught.
 
RackingHorse said:
You would be surprised how many doctors,nurses, and other medical staff are attacked by patients. I used to work as a phlebotomist, and it was sometimes a daily event that someone was getting punched, kicked, bitten, or stabbed with a needle by a patient. People who have Hep C or HIV can sometimes be very malicious, they try to get you to stick yourself with the needle you have just drawn blood from them with.
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I believe it. I used to work in a hospital and some people are worse than animals b/c they KNOW exactly what they are doing, most of the time. Sometimes they're just nuts and can't help it.
 
RackingHorse said:
You would be surprised how many doctors,nurses, and other medical staff are attacked by patients. I used to work as a phlebotomist, and it was sometimes a daily event that someone was getting punched, kicked, bitten, or stabbed with a needle by a patient. People who have Hep C or HIV can sometimes be very malicious, they try to get you to stick yourself with the needle you have just drawn blood from them with.
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Reason #980938409830923409283403924830924823010891 not to go to med school
 
Trematode said:
I am from an area where a woman was fined $12 for drowning a litter of kittens in a bucket. Maybe making it "more illegal" will stop some of those nut jobs out there. :xf:.
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People are so messed up.
At one of the vets I shadowed last winter someone brought in a kitten that some kids had lit on fire.
 
Maddiegirl said:
I couldn't agree more. I feel like the animal picks up on the owner's apprehension, which in turn, stresses the animal out further bringing out the negative behavior. I'm all for keeping the exam and treatment rooms separate. That said, I'm not sure how I feel about the cameras in the treatment areas. There are definite pros and cons for both sides.
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Yes, but one pro that hasn't come up yet - I'm a bit surprised - is this: inviting a client to watch an entire procedure (picture a spay, a dental, whatever) is one way of helping them correctly value the service vets provide.

It's a *super* helpful way to push back against the industry problem of veterinary services being undervalued.

Want to know why the dental costs so much? Come see that there are multiple techs involved, lots and lots of equipment, a sizable chunk of time, etc. When people actually see what all goes in to some of these things, the $$ becomes easier to swallow.

With regard to the restraint question, I raised that issue with the vet I was talking to. Her response was that it's rarely a problem because they are proactive about talking to the owner about what they are going to do before they do it, along with explaining the necessity.

I've seen both sides of it in the clinic, and I'm personally overwhelmingly convinced that we're better off inviting clients behind the curtain, so to speak. That said, I totally understand why someone would take the opposite position. My only suggestion would be to be open-minded about it and maybe, down the road when you're a vet, give it a try.
 
Trematode said:
That, and it gives me nightmares to think of performing an operation on a 600 pound person. :scared:.
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Actually, although terrifying on a level, it's quite an awe inspiring experience... The planning that goes into it is an event all in itself; and the operation takes a team like no other. Amazing what happens when you have to use equipment meant for livestock to move an individual and then find that what you were planning upon working on is now a secondary issue! I'll let your imagination take it from here. 😉

And keeping with the theme of the thread (in a quick and dirty manner): @#$%&! happens. 🙁
 
LetItSnow said:
Yes, but one pro that hasn't come up yet - I'm a bit surprised - is this: inviting a client to watch an entire procedure (picture a spay, a dental, whatever) is one way of helping them correctly value the service vets provide.

It's a *super* helpful way to push back against the industry problem of veterinary services being undervalued.

Want to know why the dental costs so much? Come see that there are multiple techs involved, lots and lots of equipment, a sizable chunk of time, etc. When people actually see what all goes in to some of these things, the $$ becomes easier to swallow.
Click to expand...

One of the clinics I volunteered at held an open house for the clients. They had a walk-through of a neuter made with pictures, performed a spay on a stuffed dog, had the surgery room set up with a patient and a dummy in surgical gear, and stuffed-animal patients in all of the rooms. We even had a parvo "puppy" in isolation hooked up to IV. The clients were lead through the clinic by us volunteers and there were several stations for them to visit: the "spay", "What did this animal eat?" and "Guess what animal this is" in radiology, a presentation on tapeworm and people got to see a room full of parasites. There were also little posters that talked about some of the common illnesses and how to prevent them. Afterwards, there were refreshments and the clients got to talk to the staff. Clients LOVED it.

I think it is a good happy medium short of having them watch when the clinic is running. Also, this clinic is particularly small and I feel it would be difficult in some cases to invite the clients back while trying to work with their animals. Clients were allowed out back to visit a patient that is staying in a hospital or to take a client back.
 
LetItSnow said:
Yes, but one pro that hasn't come up yet - I'm a bit surprised - is this: inviting a client to watch an entire procedure (picture a spay, a dental, whatever) is one way of helping them correctly value the service vets provide.

It's a *super* helpful way to push back against the industry problem of veterinary services being undervalued.

Want to know why the dental costs so much? Come see that there are multiple techs involved, lots and lots of equipment, a sizable chunk of time, etc. When people actually see what all goes in to some of these things, the $$ becomes easier to swallow.

With regard to the restraint question, I raised that issue with the vet I was talking to. Her response was that it's rarely a problem because they are proactive about talking to the owner about what they are going to do before they do it, along with explaining the necessity.

I've seen both sides of it in the clinic, and I'm personally overwhelmingly convinced that we're better off inviting clients behind the curtain, so to speak. That said, I totally understand why someone would take the opposite position. My only suggestion would be to be open-minded about it and maybe, down the road when you're a vet, give it a try.
Click to expand...

I think inviting clients "behind the scenes" needs to be very client specific and procedure specific. We have a fairly open door policy at the place im at now - lots of clients out the back spending time with their pets and we definately perform procedures on their pets with them there - medicating, blood draws, nasogastic feeding etc. We like it this way - we like clients to be involved in their pets care.

However, I think there is a big line between this sort of thing and letting clients watch surgery. I think that is an unreasonable amount of pressure to put on the surgeon. Human surgeons would never let family or friends watch their surgery - I think it needs to be the same with vet surgery. The last thing you need is more pressure in that situation.

I think its also important to have times where your staff can just do their job out of the "line of fire" of the client. Because at the end of the day, the people who are most likely to ask to go behind the scenes, in my experience, are the crazies. They stress you out and they make your life hard and they get in the way and they want to tell you how to do your job. I deal with enough at the front desk and in the exam room, i'd like to have somewhere in the practice i can go and vent and be without someone asking me stupid questions - which isnt the storeroom out back! lol!
(NB. I have just come off a week where literally every client i spoke to was stupid, weird or cheap, or all three. my opinion may be clouded atm!)

Trematode said:
One of the clinics I volunteered at held an open house for the clients. They had a walk-through of a neuter made with pictures, performed a spay on a stuffed dog, had the surgery room set up with a patient and a dummy in surgical gear, and stuffed-animal patients in all of the rooms. We even had a parvo "puppy" in isolation hooked up to IV. The clients were lead through the clinic by us volunteers and there were several stations for them to visit: the "spay", "What did this animal eat?" and "Guess what animal this is" in radiology, a presentation on tapeworm and people got to see a room full of parasites. There were also little posters that talked about some of the common illnesses and how to prevent them. Afterwards, there were refreshments and the clients got to talk to the staff. Clients LOVED it.

I think it is a good happy medium short of having them watch when the clinic is running. Also, this clinic is particularly small and I feel it would be difficult in some cases to invite the clients back while trying to work with their animals. Clients were allowed out back to visit a patient that is staying in a hospital or to take a client back.
Click to expand...

I think this is a seriously awesome idea.
 
Maddiegirl said:
I came across this article today that discusses veterinary medical errors and the apparent lack of consequences for doctors making the mistakes. I was curious what others preparing to enter the profession thought of this, and what consequences should be imposed on a doctor that makes a mistake that ends up crippling or killing a pet.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35286379/ns/health-pet_health/t/when-vets-make-mistakes-pets-pay-price/
Click to expand...

I had my cat died because of a vet error.
She should have received a simple dental treatment under general anaesthesia but due to the fact that the vet didn't care weather she had eaten prior to receiving Haloten, she choked and died.
🙁 😡
 
Trematode said:
Krist put is nicely. If you are going to start holding vets responsible for medical mistakes, you should be able to hold owners responsible for neglect.
Click to expand...

Part of me wishes this could be enforced more so than it is already (owner neglect). I had an owner come in wanting to spay some "barn cats" of hers last week. One of the kittens had respiratory issues, could barely move, and barely made a sound. Pretty sure if it went into the surgery it would have died. We told her the risks and returned the cat. People just don't think right anymore. Or did they ever? :laugh:


reginar said:
I had my cat died because of a vet error.
She should have received a simple dental treatment under general anaesthesia but due to the fact that the vet didn't care weather she had eaten prior to receiving Haloten, she choked and died.
🙁 😡
Click to expand...

Aren't you supposed to not allow your pet to eat before general anesthesia procedures? Not trying to start something just curious as to why it had food before the procedure in the first place. Unless you're just joking...
 
Last edited:
drwildlife said:
Aren't you supposed to not allow your pet to eat before general anesthesia procedures? Not trying to start something just curious as to why it had food before the procedure in the first place. Unless you're just joking...
Click to expand...

Or a troll....I'm pretty sure Haloten isn't used anymore, and hasn't in a very long time (or so we learned in anesthesia).
 
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