Am I the only one who thought of Lucy Mancini?
You know that your doctor is really an equestrian vet when the treatment for your broken leg is to shoot you.
As an ED physician who has to be a jack of all trades for people, I agree with you.
Much of the complexities around treating humans involves their brains–personalities; pain responses; cognition of what you are doing; willingness to litigate–on and on.
Hey do you vet guys like that Gary Larson Veterinary exam where all the equine diseases are listed and all the treatments are “Shoot” ?
kferr’s post reminded me of. I guess in some ways vet medicine is a little less constrained to outcomes.
IANADorV; I am an EMT however. I have done some rather sophisticated interventions on critters in a few instances, but most often general first aid stuff like cuts, scrapes, and minor foreign body extractions (slivers and burrs). At the level I work, there’s not a lot of difference, but the differences are close by, such as not giving Tylenol or Advil to dogs. They can only have enterically coated aspirin.
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Intubated a cat with a pediatric ET tube. Easier than a human, BTW, because the throat doesn’t curve.
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Given injections to dogs and cats.
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Set up a dog with an IV.
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Splinted a dog’s leg.
That exact cartoon is hanging up by our radiology department. Granted, it’s the small animal radiology department, who seem to have a better sense of humor than the equine folks.
VunderBob Why did you need to intubate the cat? Also, if you thought that was easy, you should try a bird. Their glottis is right at the base of the tongue. And, for a challenge, you should try a cow. Not only are their mouths a foot long, they don’t open terribly wide, so the only way to get the trach tube down is to wedge your arm past their massive molars, praying that they are sedated enough not to chomp on you, and hang on to their glottis while you guide the tube down. Oh, and they make up to 50 gallons of saliva a day. So, when they are knocked out and not swallowing, all that saliva goes all over you. Good times. 
Well, that wasn’t exactly line of duty. A buddy is a vet, and she knew I was struggling with ET intubation in EMT school. She invited me in to her office one morning when she was prepping a cat for surgery, and said “try this”. It was like throwing a dart; no stylet and no handle.
Anyway, doing it on that fat old tomcat was enough of a confidence boost that I had no further problems with humans or mannequins.
I think I agree with Pullet and Chief Pedant - I would trust a vet to treat a human more than an MD treating a pet. Particularly with the “routine” stuff that a vet or MD handles day to day.
Maybe I am prejudiced as the son of a veterinarian, but maybe not. I used to assist my dad with surgery (he did most of the surgery for his practice) and he could adjust to operating on a cat as big as your two fists or a wolfhound that weighed more than I did. And he had a huge variety of surgical skills and approaches down cold. I remember when he started doing a procedure to correct chronic urinary blockages in male cats. He read about the technique in one of his journals, and then just started doing it.
I doubt it would have taken more than a few month’s practice before he would be at least as good as the average MD resident, and probably better. And veterinary practice uses a lot of the same drugs as MDs do - the pharm salesmen that he dealt with sold to doctors too.
IOW, I think adding one more species to the list of patients when you are already treating ten different ones would be easier than adding ten when you are only used to dealing with one. Even if that one is the one you can’t muzzle. 
Regards,
Shodan
You threw a dart at a cat?! :eek:
Diuretics? Huh?
You just reminded me of one of my old high school buddies. He was the son of a vet also. A cut that any of us might suffer at that age (say, from using tools to work on something) that would have the rest of us off to the doctor for stitches would have our buddy off to see his Dad, who would sew him up just fine*. I know that his Dad stopped short of actually practicing human medicine (perhaps with the exception of the stitches), though he probably could have with some study and practice–he certainly knew plenty about basic mammalian anatomy and physiology; and as you note, veterinary medicine uses a lot of the same drugs that human medicine does. Still, when our buddy had a problem that meant a visit to the human doctor, he was reasonably well-informed about what to expect because his Dad, the vet, had explained things. With all due respect to the SDMB’s physicians, I’d trust a vet like my buddy’s Dad to treat a human more than I’d trust my GP to treat my cats.
- No anaesthesia, apparently; or so our friend said. But we were teen guys–we wouldn’t have admitted needing it anyway.
In people medicine, that’s called a vasectomy…
I think we had that picture up for either one of our equine lectures or one of our tests… I remember it because I was/am still thinking “If only it were so easy”…
I think I would have a hard time faking to be a human doc. I don’t even admit I’m a vet most of the time!
I’d rather have a vet doctor me (assuming no MD or DO is around) than, for example, have an MD attempt to doctor my birds. Vets at least study mammals, MD’s only study humans, not birds.
That said, I’d much rather go to a human specialist, but if one wasn’t around, the situation was dire, and there was a vet available, hell yes, I’d ask the vet for help. But only if there was no realistic alternative.
I’d like to think so - but I flunked the elective in Horse.
I have trimmed a guinea pig’s toenails successfully without exsanguinating it, however.
Congestive heart failure causes fluid retention, resulting in swelling of the abdomen and legs and excess fluid in and around the lungs. Diuretics are given to reduce the amount of fluid retained.
(Note that congestive heart failure is not the same thing as cardiac arrest or a heart attack.)