Equine Wound Therapies: Negative Pressure And Biological GlassNovember 27, 2012 It’s been said that if there’s a way to get injured, a horse will find it. Thankfully, veterinary researchers continue to develop improved ways to heal hideously mutilated horse flesh. Vacuum Assisted Closure (V.A.C.) Therapy by KCI Animal Health in San Antonio works by providing negative pressure at the wound site through a patented system. Wound edges are drawn together, infectious materials are removed and granulation tissue is promoted at the cellular level. V.A.C. Therapy has been commercially available for about two years. RediHeal Wound Care by Avalon Medical Innovative Veterinary Surgical Products in Stillwater, Minn., is a borate-based biological glass material that imitates fibrin and traps blood platelets, forming a wound cover to support healing. Originally used in companion animals, the product is now marketed in a larger equine version. Avalon spokesman Todd P. Nelson said the company is testing a solubilized form of the material on corneal ulcers and deep fungal infections in equine eye cases. In V.A.C. Therapy, a reticulated open-cell foam (GranuFoam) dressing is placed directly into the wound bed, then covered with a drape and proprietary pad to seal the wound and connect it to a therapy unit. Patented technology uses …
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Tips For Adding Exotics To The General PracticeNovember 27, 2012 General practitioners may choose to add exotics to their practice for a number of reasons: additional revenue, dog- and cat- owning clients are asking where they can take their exotic pet and/or an interest in learning more about exotics. But once the choice to add exotics is made, then what? A good place to start is deciding which exotic species to add, says Laurie Hess, DVM, Dipl. ABVP (avian), owner of the Veterinary Center for Birds & Exotics in Bedford Hills, N.Y. Most veterinarians who are used to treating dogs and cats feel more comfortable starting with mammals because they can extrapolate information from what they already know, Dr. Hess says. For instance, veterinarians can apply what they know about cats to ferrets. A genuine interest in the animal is a must, says Larry Nemetz, DVM, owner of The Bird Clinic in Orange, Calif. “If you don’t like the species, I believe you can’t get good [treating them],” Dr. Nemetz says. Nemetz says he decided to leave birds of prey to other specialty veterinarians because he doesn’t have a lot …
Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions For The Veterinary CommunityNovember 21, 2012 Whenever the year’s about to end I always feel the urge to write lists. There’s something cathartic about it, don’t you think? This time, however, I felt compelled to pen a list of pet issues I’d like to see the veterinary community take on as 2013’s New Year’s resolutions. While this personal exercise in wishful thinking might not feel so cathartic once I start fielding readers’ commentary, I do believe my opinions are well considered, rankle you though they may. So here goes...in no particular order: #1. Seek or devise and adopt community-wide, low-income solutions. This means we need to get smarter about offering a minimum standard of care to every single animal in the community. It’s not good enough to give it away in your place of work on occasion (or even routinely). As veterinarians we have a duty to help our communities build better systems for managing pets of the indigent, disabled and destitute. Which also means we should… #2. Get out of the way of low-cost spay and neuter clinics. If they really are charging much …
Is It Cancer? Never AssumeOctober 10, 2012Many patients never get the surgery they need or are euthanized because veterinarians or owners assume that a mass is cancerous. It’s not uncommon for a referring veterinarian to call me to perform surgery on a patient with a “splenic tumor.” I tend to call it a “splenic mass” until proven otherwise by my pathologist. Understandably, clients often don't want to put their pet through surgery if it's likely to be cancer. But that’s obviously a decision based on their family vet’s assumption. The truth is, it sometimes doesn't really matter if a mass is benign or cancerous. A benign mass can cause some very annoying signs depending on where it is located: a large mass in the rectum preventing a dog from defecating; a large cervical mass pushing on the trachea and causing severe dyspnea; a large axillary mass preventing a dog from using the leg normally. Benign intestinal mass in a 9-year-old Golden (jejunal leiomyoma). These masses might have been benign, but they still caused some significant signs that dramatically affected the pet's quality of life. We recently did surgery on three patients; all the names used here have been changed. "Everybody" just knew they had …
Can Dogs Suffer From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?September 24, 2012 Post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is not a fully recognized veterinary behavioral phenomenon but some believe it exists and is probably more common than we think. I have taught veterinary students about PTSD for many years, my initiation into this ongoing phobia being a particular case I saw many years ago. The dog in question was shot by a Boston police officer who thought the dog was going to attack him while he was pursuing a suspect. In fact, the dog was only charging along behind him, energized by the excitement and commotion. The .38-caliber bullet entered through the dog’s head, just missing vital structures and traveled along the dog’s neck, finally coming to rest in the chest wall. The dog sank to the ground in a pool of blood and his distraught owner was quickly on the scene trying to revive him. As it turns out, the dog was not dead but close to it and heading down a path of no return, but his owner quickly scooped him up and brought him to nearby Angell Memorial Animal Hospital where the ICU staff worked wonders, plugged the leak (so to speak) and brought …
Quality Control Counts With In-clinic Veterinary Labs, Heska And Abaxis SaySeptember 24, 2012 All blood analysis equipment has a propensity for certain errors. It’s just that reference laboratories are usually better at catching them, said Leslie Sharkey, DVM, Ph.D., diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathology and president of the American Society of Veterinary Clinical Pathologists. “Quality assurance programs in reference labs usually include running high, low and normal control materials purchased from the manufacturer of the analyzer or another commercial source at regular intervals, often about once a day,” she said. “We graph the data over time to make sure that we are getting the expected results and to look for trends that might indicate the analyzer is developing a problem. “In addition, many reference labs participate in external quality assurance programs in which labs are sent ‘unknowns,’ which we test and then return the results to the program,” Sharkey continued. “The program lets us know how our results compare with other participating laboratories so we can gauge our performance.” Kendal Harr, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVP, owner of a private pathology consulting firm, said quality control programs for in-clinic blood analysis equipment would frequently be considered substandard to measures taken by reference labs. A recent survey she …
Excuse My French: A Fake Story Of My LifeSeptember 17, 2012Here is the fake story of my life. Please don't analyze or overanalyze this blog; this little exercise is merely designed to show you that you know much more French words than you think. When I met Marie, definitely a brunette, not a blonde, she was an au pair, and she lived at a chateau owned by a baron. Not a nouveau riche: it was an old family of bourgeois, with a long history of princes. The chateau was filled with original paintings from Matisse, Monet and Manet. Marie worked at a boutique during the day, and she was a ballet dancer at night, so she knew everything there is to know about chassé, développé and pirouette. Her brother was the attaché to the consulate. When he saw me coming out of my Citroen, he said "en garde, do you think you have carte blanche with my sister?" I thought he was clairvoyant. He thought I was debonair or nonchalant. I know French boxing, so I punched him in the nose and said "touché." He looked grotesque. During our first rendezvous, Marie was very unique, not femme fatale or déjà vu. She was a Parisian par excellence, the crème de …
Duty To Treat Animals Depends On State LawsAugust 27, 2012 How many times have you seen a patient with a serious but treatable condition that your client just refused to treat? Have you ever felt that the lack of treatment bordered on cruelty or abuse? The law may agree with you. Every state in the union has a statute that addresses animal cruelty. Obviously, state laws differ, but at least some of them require some level of veterinary care for animals. Others do not come out and explicitly require veterinary care, but those laws have later been interpreted to require such care by the courts. In general, there is no duty to help others under the common law. Certain relationships create a duty of care such as that between a parent and minor child. But without some sort of state “good Samaritan” statute, one is legally allowed to walk right by a stranger bleeding to death on the sidewalk. Similarly, one can, under the common law, ignore the distress of one’s own animal. Any legal duty to treat an animal thus arises from state law, specifically the state cruelty statute. For example, Minnesota law states that “No person shall overdrive, overload, torture, cruelly beat, neglect, …
Lasers Offer A Therapeutic Plan For PainAugust 6, 2012 Anecdotal evidence citing successful outcomes with therapeutic lasers are becoming more frequent and have spurred research at the University of Tennessee, College of Veterinary Medicine. While only a handful of studies have been conducted exploring the use of laser therapy for veterinary medicine, the Tennessee veterinary college, pending grant approval, will investigate the penetration depth of class IV lasers in living animal tissue, according to Darryl Millis, DVM, associate professor of orthopedic surgery and directory of surgical services. “We will be exploring three approaches to treating canine arthritis,” Dr. Millis says. “Low level laser treatment, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and acupuncture will be investigated. Veterinarians need objective data.” Some veterinarians cite the lack of scientific evidence supporting therapeutic laser efficacy as a deterrent in integrating the therapy into their practices, while those who have used the equipment report great success. “I was skeptical when I first started using the class IV laser, because it’s difficult to realize the benefit of light,” says Tim Montague, DVM, of Eads Animal Hospital in Eads, Tenn. “Now, I’ve been using the laser for two years and I continue to be amazed in ways the laser helps to reduce pain, decrease inflammation, improve …
‘Speaking For Spot,’ Dr. Nancy Kay And Dr. Leo BustadAugust 1, 2012 Since 1999, the human-animal bond sessions at the American Veterinary Medical Association convention open with the the Bustad Memorial Lecture. What a wonderful legacy! Nancy Kay, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, is the 2011 Bustad Companion Animal Veterinarian winner. She was invited to present the Bustad Memorial lecture but informed the Board of the American Association of Human-Animal Bond Veterinarians (AAH-ABV) that she had a schedule conflict. I offered to present for Dr. Kay. We were faculty for the VSIPP conference at Del Coronado last year where I attended her excellent keynote lecture. Since I had read her book and was also the 1999 Bustad recipient, Dr. Kay and Dr. Robin Downing, president of the AAH-ABV, took me up on the offer. It’s truly an honor and requires double duty because I want to highlight Dr. Bustad’s brilliant life and feature Dr. Nancy Kay’s bestselling book, “Speaking for Spot.” Leo K. Bustad, DVM, Ph.D., 1920-1999 Leo Bustad started veterinary school after serving in the infantry and being a prisoner of war during WWII. He was a newlywed and a new WSU graduate at boot camp. On the ship to Africa, Leo was swept overboard during …
