pet connection

It’s the end of my first week at the teaching hospital at Purdue School of Veterinary Medicine.  It’s interesting to see veterinarians here in all stages of training, from green first-year students just learning what it takes to treat patients (and deal with their owners), on up to senior students actually involved in managing cases.

There are also interns and residents here who are honing their skills and learning how to become specialists in their chosen discipline: cardiology, internal medicine, etc. We don’t have any residents in the emergency department yet, but we hope to grow the program so we can train an emergency specialist someday.

There is also a smattering of specialists here (the faculty) who are helping teach all of these once and future veterinarians.

Some on the faculty bring real-world experience and perspective of private practice, and some have only spent time in the rarefied atmosphere of academia, where it takes hours to even get an X-ray.

In the busy world of private practice ER  that would never fly. ER’s have to be nimble and quick –  it is all about “throughput.”  Universities tend to be a little lumbering and slow, with mountains of red tape.

We are trying to gear up for a busier ER caseload now that we have two ER specialists on faculty; I feel like we are training to do an obstacle course driving a Winnebago.

So far, I have really been dealing only with the patients, the students and the doctors. I haven’t had to interact with any pet owners; it feels a little like cheating. Helping pet owners is often the most difficult part of the job: Explaining medical things to non-medical people, trying to find that balance between “too much”and giving up too early. The line between going too far or being too invasive and just throwing up your hands and saying “there’s nothing more we can do.”  It is a hard skill to learn, and all of us here are trying to impart those skills on a new generation of veterinarians.

We had a case this week of  a little Dachshund named Willis who was hit by a car and sustained severe and life-threatening injuries. He had a collapsed lung and soft tissue injuries, broken ribs and a broken arm. I have been spending the week working with the surgical service, getting his life-threatening injuries addressed so we could get his arm fixed. He’s coming along well, and actually in surgery as I write.

He looked like death warmed over the first few days, but with teamwork and persistence he has done well and we expect him to make a full recovery. He has dedicated owners and a team of talented medical folks looking after him.

At the university, we take a lot of time and go over case details again and again, making sure we have covered all the points and considered all the options. It is a laborious process, but the by-product is the knowledge that is imparted on the students.  Private practice is much faster-paced because the objective is the delivery of care, not teaching.  It is also the aim of private practice to make money  –  it is a business after all. That goal is lessened somewhat in a teaching institution (but not absent altogether).

The future will be bright, I hope,  for all these people headed for a career in veterinary medicine, and for Willis as well. It is a promising start to my time here.

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