When I was in elementary school, I was already an overachiever. I had been planning my career as a veterinarian since I was six years old. Somehow, my mother convinced me that my vet school application would contain a section where my grades for grades four through twelve were scrutinized heavily and could make the… Read More
The Realities of Human Error In Veterinary Surgery
Helmut* was one of my cancer patients. He also had a painful, nonvisual eye. The eye ended up giving him more trouble than the tumor and the owner elected to have it removed. She had it removed by a board-certified ophthalmologist (not at the hospital I work at, I hasten to add). There was a… Read More
How to Break Up With Your Veterinarian
Hopefully, you have a veterinarian who you really like. Maybe even love. (But when I say love, I do not mean love, because that is another problem.) The veterinarian-client-patient relationship is built on mutual respect and trust. Sometimes the veterinarian-client-patient relationship becomes a friendship, which is confusing, and not necessary or even advisable. A successful… Read More
None of Us Will Have A Death This Good
An excerpt from: Lucky Dog: How Being A Veterinarian Saved My Life by: Dr. Sarah Boston As veterinarians, one of the options that we are able to provide is humane euthanasia. I believe this is the ultimate freedom — the freedom to die without pain. In humans, we resist when death is imminent, suffering is great, and there… Read More
The End of “Suck It Up”?
These are crazy times, both in general (beyond scope of this blog) and in veterinary medicine (will try to focus on this). Veterinary medicine has changed drastically in the past 20 years and I feel like I am in a good position to observe these changes because I’m an in-betweeny when it comes to my… Read More