CNN story on vet care 7-7-03

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Did anyone see a report on CNN yesterday about people suing their vets for pain and suffering because their dog died? Apparently, the reporters trashed not only the vet in question, but the profession in general. Someone at work was telling me a little about it, and the story sounded a bit off-kilter to me. I can’t find any references to the story online, but then I’m not very good at web searches.

If anyone saw this report, or can find the story online, I’d really like to know more about it, as this sort of thing is pretty relevant to my livelihood. (I still need to track down a June copy of Consumer Reports and see just how bad that article was. It must have really been something for the president of the AVMA to not only respond, but to send copies of the letter to all the members.)

Anyway, if anyone can help me out, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

2

I saw the report. There was a family that sued the vet. Their case claims loss of the dog as more than property. I believe currently, dogs or pets in general are considered property. The amount of any settlement is determined by the monetary value of the animal. I guess this is the first case that challenges this formula.

Link

3

So did the CNN folks have any more information on what actually happened to the dog? Did he have anestetic problems? Did the owners agree to do bloodwork for putting him under? Did he have pre-existing heart or respiratory problems?

Based on the information I’ve dug up so far, the only way I can blame the vet is if there was an anesthetic foul-up and he wasn’t getting oxygen for a while or if they let the dog aspirate. With aspiration, though, if they don’t die in the first few hours, they usually either pull through or sink over a few days.

I’m a little confused as to why they had to bring up that the dog couldn’t leave till the bill was paid in full. That’s standard practice in veterinary medicine, although most vets will make exceptions for long-standing clients. And if the dog’s in that bad a condition, he needs to be monitored constantly, and day practices just don’t have that capability overnight.

So, jacksen, were the reporters really all “Oh, if that ever happened to my little Fluffy…” or was the chick who was telling me about it overly bent out of shape?

4

CCL, I have that issue of Consumer Reports. If you’d like, I can fax it to you tomorrow. Just email your fax # to me and I’ll be glad to do it.:slight_smile:

5

Link

The vet says the dog died of a pre-existing condition. They took him in to have a couple of teeth pulled. I believe the only reason the story is getting picked up is because before this dogs were considered as property and the owner could only recover the price they paid. No details about what went wrong were provided.

This could be good and bad. Good because people that lose pets due to someone’s negligence will be entitled to some monetary consideration. Bad because vet bills will go up.

I would like to see everyone held to a higher standard when it comes to how animals are treated. However, I eat hambugers and steaks, etc. Still, pets are more than property.

I have more confidence and respect in my vet than I do in my own doctor. He actually provides higher quality care and when we have an appointment for 3:00, we are getting seen at 3:00.

6

Here’s some more links. Not sure how helpful they are:

http://tinyurl.com/gcuu

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/eveningnews/main560405.shtml

All the articles say is that the dog had a “pre-existing condition.” The rest of the details will most likely come out in court.

And I am sure the thing about the owners having to pay the bill before they left was mentioned because the owners, when interviewed, were angry about it. Even though I know it is standard practice to pay the bill in full after services are rendered at a vet clinic, if my dog were dying/in serious trouble and they wanted me to delay taking him to an emergency service so I could pay the bill I’d have been pissed too. It sounds like the clinic this dog was taken is their regular vet, so there would have been a relationship there, though it is hard to tell for sure in the articles.

7

Oh, hell’s bells, I’ve figured out what happened to the dog. He was named Lucky. Animals named Lucky always friggin’ die of bizarre stuff. Always.

So clearly, the dog’s death is the owner’s fault.

(Okay, so vet humor isn’t all that funny. It doesn’t take much to amuse people who consider it a good day when they go home covered in blood and uterine secretions, but no cat piss or anal glands, okay? I’m not joking about the sad fates of most patients named Lucky, though. Ask your vet.)

As for the thing with the bill, the dog was already in an oxygen cage being monitored. You know what the emergency clinic is going to do with that dog? Put him in an oxygen cage and monitor it. He’s getting the exact same treatment during the time spent paying the bill as he would at the ER, so that’s not really an issue.

Apparently this vet had operated on the dog before, for cancer, so they’d already spent a fair bit of money with that clinic. What this says to me is that there was a problem with getting them to pay their bills before, or that their behavior on the day in question led the vet to believe there would be a problem getting them to pay that bill. (I’ll amend my earlier statement to read that vets usually make exceptions for longstanding good clients. The assholes and the bad credit risks are just SOL.)

I’m not sure how I feel about the whole suing for pain and suffering thing. From a professional standpoint, I think it blows donkeys. This kind of thing could drive the costs of veterinary care through the roof, and enough animals already go without care due to financial constraints. The higher the prices go, the more owners can’t afford treatment, or even basic preventive care for the pets, so the more animals suffer.

It kind of bothers me on a personal level, too. On one hand, I can see the idea of compensation for your loss. Mainly, though, the idea of putting a price tag on your loved ones disturbs me. It feels mercenary to me, like saying, “Well, yeah, I loved him and it was hell to lose him, but $X will make everything all better.” To say that the pain of someone’s loss can be assuaged with money just seems to insult their memory and cheapen your feelings for them.

earthpuppy, thanks for the offer, but I don’t know the fax number at work, and the day people probably wouldn’t put the fax in my mailbox anyway. I’ll just wander over to the library eventually and read it there.

8

Agreed. The only positive that may come from something like this would be the general attitude change among all people but especially those that enforce the law. I would like to see people get more than a citation for animal cruelty.

I have a dog named Lucky. He is quite happy and healthy so far.:smiley:

9

CCL, you know this as a veterinary professional, but the owners most likely wouldn’t have known this. I’ve had dogs for years and I wouldn’t have known this. As an owner, I would have been upset and would just want to get the hell out of there. What I am wondering - the articles don’t say anything specific about this - is if the owners were informed that something had gone wrong before they went in to pick up the dog. I certainly would have been shocked, and then angry, if I had walked in thinking I could pick up my dog and then finding out it was extremely ill and that I couldn’t take the dog to the emergency clinic without paying the bill first. Emotions overtake logic pretty well when you’re confronted with something like this.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the vet got a vibe from them that they were angry about the condition of the dog, which of course could have lead to a refusal to pay. Again, I’d really like to know if some attempt to contact them and inform them of what was happening was ever made.

Yes, this concerns me too. Good care for pets is already expensive. I’d like to see punishment reserved for really incompetent vets, and of course the appropriate course of action to take in those cases is suspension of the license to practice.

I don’t think that’s the point. The point is to punish the person who did wrong, and in this society we can’t tie them to stakes and beat them. Instead we have come up with the idea of punishing people by forcing them (or in most cases, their insurance companies) to fork over some cash. I know there are plenty of people who sue hoping for a big payday, but I’m sure there are plenty of others who do it because it’s the only thing they can do to punish someone who has hurt them.

10

So, getting someone’s license revoked and impairing their ability to make a living isn’t a punishment? I don’t think I buy that.

Merits of the case aside, though, I have to wonder if they’re going to run into problems getting routine vet care in the future. I know I wouldn’t want them coming into my clinic. Frankly, I don’t need the stress of constantly worrying over every little thing, in case we can’t save their pet and they decide to sue. Sometimes, people and animals just die and I don’t want to get dragged in the middle of a mess in case their dog just dies on my shift. I could definitely see a vet deciding these people are more stress than they’re worth and dropping them from the practice.

11

I would not want my vet worrying about a law suit. What I expect from my vet is that they focus on providing the best possible care. I would imagine vets deal with a lot of folks that are trouble. They probably would like to beat some humans over the head with a big stick at times. But then, their purpose is to care for animals.
Besides, this dog died. I would guess that if they get another they would choose another vet anyway.

12

Oh, I’m not talking about this vet. The articles already described him as their former vet. I was thinking about the new vet. Sure, we deal with folks that are a huge pain in the ass, but I’ve seen a few folks get told to take their animal, get out of the building, and not come back. There’s a limit to the crap vets are willing to take for the sake of the pet, and I’m thinking the fear of a major lawsuit if their dog bloats or gets pyometra or cancer or whatever and dies in the clinic might be over that limit.

Heck, I can see lawsuit potential even in routine care. Allergic reactions to vaccines are pretty common, and they can be very dangerous. I’d be leery of vaccinating these people’s animal, even, for fear he’d go into anaphylactic shock and I’d get sued for being so incompetent as to vaccinate this creature. 'Cause look how traumatic it was for them, and I should have known the dog was one of the .01% that would do that.

I mean hell, they’ve already sued one vet because their 8 year old dog with cancer and bad teeth and some sort of pre-existing condition died. What’s to stop them from suing another vet when something goes wrong?

When the cost of having a patient–financial losses, threats, aggravation for the staff, whatever–outweighs the benefits, doctors (medical and veterinary) stop seeing the patient. Hell, I know a woman who’s such a verbally abusive pain in the ass that she’s on the verge of being kicked out of the only renal practice in town. She’ll just have to go to another town for her dialysis if she doesn’t shape up.

In theory, we should think only of the patient. In reality, however, you cannot ignore the costs whether they be financial or wear and tear on employees. Not if you want to stay in business and continue to help the rest of your patients.

13

It is, certainly, and IMO, I think that would be a more appropriate action if there’s really a problem. However, just as in human medicine, the only circumstances under which it would be likely to happen is if the medical professional has shown a history of these type of things happening and really can be judged as incompetent, which is a more difficult thing to bring about than filing a civil lawsuit. And who knows if these people even know they could file a complaint with the state veterinary board (and if they know, if they did). Pretty much everyone knows they can sue, and you don’t even need a particularly strong case to do that. You can make someone’s life miserable with a lawsuit without even winning. So that may very well be the point, who knows.

And no, it’s not right or fair, IMO, in any case. And I don’t want my vet (or my doctor, either) to have to worry about whether or not I’m going to freak out and sue them because of bad luck, or whatever. I think it’s a shame there’s not a better system in place for this. And I sure hope veterinary lawsuits don’t catch on, because all of us who have and love pets will end up paying for it.

14

Some people are just going to sue because they see an opportunity to make a few hundred dollars. If this goes the distance then we should all expect to pay more.
In theory, we should think only of the patient. In reality, however, you cannot ignore the costs whether they be financial or wear and tear on employees. Not if you want to stay in business and continue to help the rest of your patients.

Please know that your work is greatly appreciated. On behalf of the animal kingdom - a big thank you.:slight_smile: