Costs of vet visits
This last Monday was a bank holiday. And somehow I ended up on duty. I often avoid writing about costs here as it is such a contentious issue. Running an emergency veterinary service is expensive. And we did not cover the costs of opening and staffing the building. Yet the consult charges were called shocking and outrageous by people ringing and demanding to know costs before even discussing the problem. Often after this they hung up. As vets we know money is an issue. Even more so with the job losses and impact of Covid-19. Yet failing to communicate means you as an owner miss out.
Often we will try and only see you if it is really necessary. This often involves triaging and discussing what is going on by phone. This is generally free, and may mean you may not need to be seen. Sometimes with advice you may be able to wait until normal opening times.
A lot of practices will also know what access there is for low cost veterinary care in the area. We keep a list of local charity practices that we can refer you to.
However none of this is possible when people hang up the phone. This is really frustrating. The animal doesn’t get help.
Learning
This week was really cool in terms of education. I had someone explain tieback surgery to me, and talk me through the procedure. Now I just need the cadaver practice before I attempt this on a patient. It is a surprising simple surgery, yet understanding the anatomy is a nightmare. I’ve made myself a larynx model to help with this from some card.
CertAVP
I started my next CertAVP module this week. Critical Care and Analgesia is something I think important not only as a surgeon postoperatively. Also as someone doing nights on an out of hours service. The first part of this module is a review of anatomy and physiology relating to different disease conditions. This is really interesting when put into a clinical context. This week we’ve been looking at cardiac disease (heart failure) and respiratory disease (respiratory failure).
Books
Over the past few months I’ve been really good in managing not to buy any books. So I felt this week that treating myself to the new edition of veterinary surgery was a good investment. Also I managed to find a copy of Small Animal Critical Care Medicine £30 cheaper than on amazon so got this to accompany this module of my CertAVP. I am very aware of the problem in transporting books so am trying to keep my new additions down before my next move.
