Giving in to Grief: Going “There”December 10, 2015It must be the holidays. The music has changed in all the stores to the classic holiday tunes, the decorations have come out of the attic, and Starbucks has its holiday lattes back! We are all supposed to be happy and grateful, full of holiday spirit and lots of ho, ho, hos. When we don’t feel the characteristic holiday happiness, we wonder what’s wrong with us, and we feel even bluer for our isolation. Make no mistake: Holidays are hard, especially if you’re missing someone special. When I unpack my Christmas tree ornaments, I know I will come across ornaments that memorialize furry family members that are no longer with us. There will be Rosy the red Somali, who liked to chew on tissue paper and ribbons (outlawed shortly after this habit emerged; no linear foreign bodies here!). There will be Michael, the long-haired domestic short hair who loved to sit under the tree in a trance, who only blessed us for that one year. Someday, the pets who watched me put up decorations yesterday, including Joy the Cavalier, who likes to chew the garland, and Georgia No-Eyes, who doesn’t get to gaze upon …
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Reasons to be a VeterinarianDecember 9, 2015Punch the numbers until the paint wears off your calculator, but there’s no way to financially justify owning a kayak. At least not if it’s only used for pleasure and you never expect to earn any income regardless of the time spent on the water. So, why would anyone own one? The obvious answer is that numbers on a balance sheet don’t tell the whole story. For many people, there are enough intangible benefits to more than justify spending money to pay for and maintain a kayak. Only a few of our clients could justify the financial cost of owning a pet. Happily for them, and us, the intangible benefits far outweigh the costs. Maybe this is another point of connection between veterinarians and pet lovers. Because of an array of current economic factors, it’s becoming more and more difficult to justify choosing veterinary medicine as a career. And there have always been easier ways to make a living. Still, the demand for acceptance to veterinary colleges remains high. It seems logical then that an important driving force behind that demand is the reality of intangible …
How Much do Vets Make?December 9, 2015When your dog or cat gets the sniffles and a subsequent visit to the veterinarian, you may walk out of the clinic with a grumpier (if healthier) pet and a bigger bill than you’d been hoping for. More than one pet owner has found themselves driving home, inquiring of the windshield how much of what they just paid is going to line their veterinarian’s pockets. The truth is that although the average salary for a veterinarian is strong (somewhere between the 80th and 90th percentile of annual salaries in the United States, depending upon the number of years the veterinarian has in the field), their expenses can be steep, and those expenses can linger for years. What is the Average Salary of a Veterinarian? Dr. Michael Dicks, director of the veterinary economics division at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), said that new graduates from veterinary school often face drastically different financial futures, depending upon where they went to school, and whether they had to shoulder the cost themselves. As is the …
Top Veterinary Technician Schools & EducationDecember 3, 2015If you are thinking about becoming a vet tech, chances are you know you need to find a good school to train you and help you prepare for the state exam. There’s a lot you need to consider to find the program that will be the best fit for your particular needs. Do you have the flexibility for an in person course that will give you plenty of hands-on experience or do you need the flexibility of an online program? Maybe a hybrid program that gives you the best of both worlds would be the best fit. Some programs also give you the chance to specialize. If you really want to work with large animals, you might not want spend as much time learning about cats and dogs, but you will still need to choose a program that will give you the information you need to earn your certifications. Most techs who specialize study large animals, marine animals, birds, radiology, nutrition or dentistry. If you would rather generalize, it’s good to pick a program that will still give you a little experience with each. It is also important to account …
The Facebook FalloutNovember 30, 2015Originally published in the November 2015 issue of Veterinary Practice News. Did you enjoy this article? Then subscribe today! Are you on Facebook? Well, you either love it or hate it. You either spend countless hours each month poring over posts, stopping at funny kitty and dog videos, or you ignore it altogether. I have only recently gotten to where I visit Facebook regularly. Yep, I resisted for years, until I figured out how to trim my newsfeed down so I only get updates on the people I really want to know about. (Yes, that’s the other problem, my total ineptness at the technical realm of the site.) So as I was perusing Facebook a few months ago, I came across an article for parents about the effect Facebook may have on a child. No, it wasn’t the “Internet stalker” warning, but something much more prevalent and more impactful. It was all about how kids on Facebook often see their friends hanging with other people, even people they don’t know well, surrounding themselves with friends and fun activities in …
About Veterinary SpecialistsOctober 29, 2015When a pet has a health issue, a trip to your regular veterinarian is in order. But sometimes, as in human medicine, that might just be step one in the treatment of more complex medical conditions. As in human medicine, a general practitioner who suspects a patient may be suffering from something more than the run-of-the-mill illness or chronic condition may call in a veterinary specialist to help. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), 11,000 veterinarians in the United States have been recognized as specialists in 40 distinct areas of veterinary medicine. Those 40 areas are grouped into 22 specialty organizations based on subject area, each with their own set of requirements that a veterinarian must complete to specialize in a given area or to become “board-certified.” Basically, according to the AVMA, a veterinary specialist is: “… is a veterinarian who has completed additional training in a specific area of veterinary medicine and has passed an examination that evaluates their knowledge and skills in that specialty area.” KatarzynaBialasiewicz/istock/Thinkstock Veterinary specialists require additional education and training. …
Vet Techs Say Sedation Is UnderutilizedOctober 27, 2015Being bitten, scratched or kicked by a patient is an accepted part of life at a veterinary hospital. But members of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA) believe the risk of injury would be reduced if more animals were sedated. A survey published in the October/November issue of The NAVTA Journal found that a veterinary technician is called upon to physically restrain a patient an average of 11 times a week and that sedation was used in less than half of the cases where it would have been appropriate. The American Animal Hospital Association’s “Anesthesia Guidelines for Dogs and Cats” states that sedation may be suitable during short, minimally invasive procedures such as diagnostics, joint injections, suture removal and wound management. More complex cases and treatments lasting more than 30 minutes may require anesthesia. The 1,262 NAVTA members who responded to the survey reported that sedation was used most often during exploration or repair of wounds or cuts, during euthanasia and when an animal had a troublesome temperament. Other top cases that called for sedation were during radiology procedures, fracture stabilization and the removal of foreign objects. “Interestingly, you reported that procedure type has more influence on …
Common Vet Assistant Interview QuestionsOctober 26, 2015To ask the right interview questions when hiring a veterinary assistant, you must first know what a veterinary assistant IS, and how they function in your veterinary practice. According to the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA), this is the definition of a veterinary assistant: “While every position within the veterinary practice team is important, veterinary assistants play a pivotal role, literally. In the course of a single day, an assistant provides help to veterinarians and veterinary technicians, which in turn allows those team members to perform the tasks and responsibilities of their positions. The next minute, the assistant may be helping a client understand why having their pet's teeth cleaned is so important or providing a receptionist with a second set of hands at the front desk. Helping to fill scripts, keeping exams rooms cleaned and prepped, setting up lab work, helping with inventory, updating medical records, assisting with nursing care — there are more things that veterinary assistants do in a day than most people realize.” Does this describe a veterinary …
Halloween Horrors: 3 Spooky Vet Surgery Situations to AvoidOctober 22, 2015Picture this: Everything is running smoothly in your practice. Then suddenly, your technician shrieks! HORROR; disaster strikes! All kinds of spooky situations can occur at veterinary clinics. Whether similar situations occur around Halloween or not, there are cheap, simple, effective solutions to avoid getting in trouble. 1) Injecting the Wrong Medication Dr. Frankie was about to perform ACL surgery on Raven. He asked for the syringe that contained the local anesthetic (bupivacaine), which he was going to inject in the knee. His technician Morticia realized with horror that she had given the local anesthetic IV by mistake, thinking it was cefazolin! Fortunately, no ill effects occurred, even though bupivacaine is cardiotoxic. Similar incidents do occur, such as the poor rushed colleague who injected (pink) euthanasia solution instead of a (pink) vaccine, after grabbing an unmarked syringe off the counter. The solution is easy: Invest a few dollars in stickers that indicate the name of the medication. You can also use blank labels, that the veterinary technicians can fill in with the names of the drugs …
The Power of WordsOctober 15, 2015Words have power. You know how the old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones” ends, but it simply is not true. Words said by people who are in a care-giving role are even MORE powerful. Once when I was in the hospital after a laparoscopy, I had urethral spasms that left me unable to “do it” myself. As if being catheterized every 6 to 8 hours wasn’t bad enough, late one night I had a nurse come in and say in a nasty tone of voice, “if you don’t do this on your own you’ll have to go home with a catheter.” Her tone of voice was ugly and condemning. Maybe she was irritated that she had to catheterize me again, as busy as she was, but the results were devastating. I collapsed into tears when she left the room, and had to call my spouse to come sit with me that night. And let me be clear, it was not the thought of going home with the urinary catheter that bothered me, it was the thought that I disappointed that nurse. Most of the time, we do not necessarily say something mean …
