04/02/2019
Very important post for all of us and our clients
Please keep all comments respectful and professional
Bellemore Animal Hospital posted on
January 28 at 1:31 PM ·
I hesitate to write this because I don’t want to be misunderstood. I am not looking for sympathy or to make anyone feel guilty. I have shared before about how I don’t want to give veterinary advice via phone or messages. Today is why. Today I felt the consequences of misinterpreting the reported signs of an ill patient. Yesterday, (a Sunday, when I am not in the office), my mom, who lives 2 hours away, called me about her cat. She said he had been fine the day before, but now he was laying around and didn’t want to eat or drink. He got a little crabby when she tried to move him. That’s it. Just laying around and cranky. He is normally a lazy cat who doesn’t like to be man-handled. He was just more lazy and more irritated than usual. I guessed Cowboy would be ok to wait overnight. We decided she would bring him to my office today, 24 hours later. Only 24 hours. My mom blames herself but in reality, the cat was so good natured he wasn’t giving clear signs of how sick he really was. Cowboy was a big, beautiful, country kitty. He lived the good life and was very healthy. He had no history of urinary tract infections. He was not screaming while trying to urinate. He was not straining to urinate. He wasn’t screaming when she touched his belly. None of the normal signs of urinary blockage. But he WAS blocked. And I missed it. For 24 hours.
He didn’t make it.
I only share this to explain why I can’t help you over the phone. My mom is an intelligent, responsible cat owner. She is the mother of a veterinarian. But she is not a veterinarian. She doesn’t know how to check a cat’s bladder. The smell of ketonic breath smelled like infection to her. She is a NORMAL, intelligent, responsible cat owner. She didn’t do anything wrong. It is perfectly acceptable for my own mother to contact me for pet advice. She reported what she knew to me. And I acted on what I was told. But there was a disconnect in the information. Not because she told me anything wrong, but because she told me only what she knew.
When I touched him today, literally within one second, I knew what she did not. Because she is a normal, intelligent, responsible cat owner and I am a veterinarian. I have spent more than 25 years of my life learning how to examine pets. Examine-touch, see, smell, listen. I missed it because I could do none of these things on the phone. Cowboy couldn’t tell me what was wrong; his care was entirely dependent on the humans around him interpreting his actions, palpating his abdomen, looking at his gum color, smelling his breath, and listening to what he could not say. And this human failed him.
I loved that cat tremendously. (He’s the only cat of hers in the last 30 years who didn’t hate me.) I could have understood and handled losing him to a horrible disease in which I had no ability to intervene. But this is painful at a deeper level. I don’t need sympathy or anyone telling me it’s not my fault, I couldn’t have known, etc. I do need every pet owner to understand why your veterinarian wants you to bring your animal into the office and not try to give it our best guess. Our best guess is still a guess. Most of the time we are pretty good at it, but when we are wrong, the consequences are grave.
Hear my heart...I was wrong when communicating with my OWN MOTHER. I know how to ask questions of her and I completely understand her answers. She didn’t tell me anything that wasn’t real. Yet the picture was incomplete. If I failed to get a clear picture with my own mother, imagine how fuzzy the picture may be with someone I don’t know as well. Please understand I am trying to do my best, not my best guess.
Dr. Fischer
We are a branch of Mudgee Vet Hospital, located in Rylstone. For all emergencies please phone 637221
