NCVEI Releases Pet Health Insurance PaperApril 17, 2009 The National Commission on Veterinary Economic Issues (NCVEI) in Chicago released “A Veterinarian’s Guide to Pet Health Insurance,” an eight-page position paper written by the Brakke Veterinary Practice Management Group on Jan. 19. The NCVEI expects the paper to be the first in a series that will address business and economic issues facing the veterinary profession. Published for distribution at the 2009 North American Veterinary Conference, the paper contends that an insured clientele is economically beneficial to the profession. It also provides tips to practices for promoting the use of pet health insurance among clients. Those tips include appointing a staff member to be insurance coordinator for the practice, selecting and supporting a limited number of pet health insurers to support, educating the entire staff about pet health insurance, flagging medical records of insured clients so they can be informed of services covered by their insurance and submitting claims for clients, thereby bonding them to the practice. “Pet health insurance information, whether on the Internet or in a brochure, is often directed to the consumer and/or created to sell a particular policy,” said Karen Felsted, CPA, MS, …
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How To Deal With An Adriamycin SpillApril 17, 2009 Adriamycin and vincristine, the most commonly used chemotherapy drugs in the battle against cancer in pets, are caustic vasosclerotics. If Adriamycin is extravasated into the perivascular tissues, the results may turn into one of your worst nightmares. We use the term “vasosclerotic” on our chemotherapy treatment forms to warn our staff that localized tissue injury will result if there is a spill. Most perivascular leaks are noticed right away as a “bleb” or swelling immediately adjacent to the venipuncture site. Occasionally a few spills go home undetected and untreated only to be noticed anywhere from one to10 days later. The pet owner calls into the office with complaints that the pet has pain, or is limping or has swelling or desquamation or is licking the venipuncture site. The most notorious vasoclerotic is Adriamycin and its anthracyline relatives, doxorubicin, daunorubicin, epirubicin and idaruricin. Vincristine, vinblastine, cis-platin, mitoxantrone, mechlorethamine (Mustargen), mithramycin and etoposide are also vesicant, but they pale in their toxicity when compared to the irreversible indolent tissue damage inflicted by the Adriamycin group. In my opinion, there is no equal to the tissue necrosis that even small amounts of Adriamycin can cause to …
Colorado’s Vet College Opens Its Doors To Celebrate 100 YearsApril 17, 2009 Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is celebrating its 100-year anniversary by hosting an open house March 30-31, giving the public an opportunity to quiz veterinarians and tour the teaching hospital. Members of the graduating class of 1957 will discuss how veterinary medicine has changed over the past 50 years, including how technology has advanced medicine and how diseases have evolved. The open house will also feature exam rooms set up with 1957 equipment and historical displays, which will include demonstrations of how equipment used in the years after the veterinary college was founded at Colorado State. In addition, Narda Robinson, DVM, will give a demonstration of the use of acupuncture in veterinary medicine. For more information, visit www.cvmbs.colostate.edu. <HOME>
PetEdge Issues Toothpaste RecallApril 17, 2009 Due to possible diethylene glycol contamination, PetEdge has issued a voluntary recall of one of its toothpaste products for pets. Diethylene glycol is a chemical found in antifreeze and other solvents. If ingested, it can cause headaches, renal failure or death. PedEdge officials state they have received no reports of any illness associated with the toothpaste and are issuing the recall as a cautionary measure. The affected product is the 1.4 oz. Top Performance ProDental Toothpaste with Toothbrush kit in both the beef and mint flavors. Product details: • Item number: TP128 • Beef Flavor UPC Code: 721343128151 • Mint Flavor UPC Code: 721343128564 Consumers are urged to discard the product immediately. To receive a credit, customers will have to complete and return a PetEdge Product Destruction Log. For details and more information, call PetEdge at 888-211-8706. <HOME>
Dogs Sniff Out CancerApril 17, 2009 The theory that dogs can smell cancer is scientifically supported, reported the British Medical Journal. The report is from an experiment conducted by researchers at Amersham Hospital in Oxford, England. The experiment involved six dogs that were trained to distinguish between urine from patients with bladder cancer and urine from healthy subjects. The dogs successfully identified the sample from a cancer patient 41 percent of the time. The ability to identify the correct sample by chance alone is only 14 percent. The success rate would improve, the report concluded, if training methods were more fully developed. <HOME>
WSU’s Vet College Offers CAMApril 17, 2009 Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine is offering “Complementary and Alternative Veterinary Medicine,” a new class for fall. The one-credit elective course runs Sept. 22-23. Topics include information on natural nutritional supplements, acupuncture, chiropractic techniques and rehabilitation techniques for animals. CAM externships will also be available through the class. . “Veterinarians face different demands than they did in the past,” said Mushtaq Memon, BVSc, Ph.D., the associate professor who introduced the new course. As pets hold a higher stature within the family, owners are increasingly interested in applying a full spectrum of medical treatments available to humans to their pets, Dr. Mushtaq said. For more information, call 509-335-0711.
AVMA And AVMF Partner With Red CrossApril 17, 2009The American Veterinary Medical Assn. and its charitable branch, the American Veterinary Medical Foundation, have signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Red Cross to coordinate animal rescue efforts and programs. The national groups have had a statement of understanding since 1998, but this formal agreement lays the groundwork for increased cooperation. "This partnership with the Red Cross will help the American Veterinary Medical Foundation bring substantive help to pets and animals not only on the national level but at the local level," said Michael Cathey, head of the foundation. "It gives us a hands-on network of people who will work around our goal of helping pets in times of disaster. This is an exciting new chapter in the AVMF's outreach efforts." The foundation will use grants to help fund programs developed under the agreement. The AVMA will serve as a technical adviser to the Red Cross on all animal and veterinary aspects of disaster-response efforts. About 100,000 animals, pets and livestock are separated from their owners or lost during a major natural disaster such as a hurricane or forest fire, according to the AVMA. Many times owners are …
Root Canal Renaissance, 2008April 17, 2009 Strategic teeth should not be removed unnecessarily but preserved with endodontic treatment. Through informed consent, the client is given the option of extraction versus root canal therapy. Dental X-ray with the addition of digital processing allows endodontic diagnostics to be achieved quickly. Changes in the shape and continuity of the lamina dura and in the width and shape of the periodontal ligament structure are important evaluations when determining the need for endodontic intervention. Root resorption and periapical osteolysis are important findings in pre-treatment root canal X-ray diagnostics. Worn teeth from attrition, cracked or fractured teeth, discolored teeth [i.e. irreversible pulpitis] and cavities or caries in the crown of the tooth are potential red-flags for endodontic or root canal treatment. All these conditions require oral X-ray diagnostics to confirm the need for root canal treatment. Root canal treatment requires special education. Endodontic treatment can be lengthy and not without complications. Wide-canal endodontics and narrow-canal endodontics both can be quite challenging. Mastering endodontics requires laboratory instruction with a mentor who can provide algorithms of treatment for difficult cases. New …
Peek And Shriek Surgeries: My Worst NightmareApril 17, 2009 There’s a catchy colloquial term used to describe the times we undertake surgical procedures that are well beyond our abilities. You may know it as the “peek and shriek.” And we all do it at some point or another in our careers. These are the times we wish we’d never anesthetized the patient and had the hubris to think we could cut him up. These are the times when the room suddenly seems to swelter and spin and the sweat starts to pool at your waistband. These are the times when vet surgeons incite our envy for their ability to surrender their stress to the knowledge that their skills make them much better at this than the rest of us. Whether it’s the raging mass coursing with monster vessels, the urethral stones encrusted in secret urethral cavities, the recalcitrant fractures splintering beneath our fingers, the bowel regurgitating its contents intra-abdominally, the heavily necrosed post-torsed stomachs or the ginormous cutaneous masses we somehow couldn’t manage to excise without leaving equally colossal wounds with no hope of primary closure, they give me nightmares. I detest these cases. They mostly make me want to curl up into …
Hill’s Pet Nutrition Names Winners In America’s Fittest Pets ContestApril 17, 2009 Misty, a golden retriever owned by Dorene Davis from Holiday, Fla., and Thomas, an American shorthair cat owned by Sharon Decuir from Fort Worth, Texas, are the canine and feline grand prize winners of Hill’s Pet Nutrition Inc.’s America’s Fittest Pets Contest. The announcement was made Jan. 19 at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Fla., at the Disney Wide World of Sports Complex. The contest, one part of Hill’s participation in the AVMA/Hill’s Alliance for Healthier Pets—Obesity Awareness and Prevention Program, encouraged pet owners to work with their veterinary health care teams to make changes in their pets’ lifestyles and feeding habits to help them lose weight. These changes came through regular veterinary weigh-ins, monitored feeding, including the introduction of Hill’s Prescription Diet r/d brand pet food, and advocating regular physical activity. Through the program, Misty went from 118 pounds to 78 pounds and Thomas went from more than 17 pounds to 15.8 pounds. While Thomas' 1.2 pounds loss is the equivalent of a 130 pound woman losing 10 pounds. Decuir also announced that she lost 30 pounds herself just by being more health conscious. Other canine contestants included Behlee, a Jack Russell …
