"He's looking better" my fucking ASS!

The BBQ Pit
1

To the vet who referred us a dog who’d been in Addisonian crisis but was “looking better”:

Oh, come off the fucking bullshit. There’s no way in hell that dog was looking anything but dead when it left your clinic. Fifteen minutes after you called, the dog arrived in our clinic with gray mucus membranes, agonal respiration, a body temp of 92 fucking degrees, and glazed eyes with no pupillary response or corneal reflex. If that’s better, he must have been in the goddam coffin when he showed up at your place. We did everything we could for him, but we never really had a chance, what with him being dead when we got him and all.

He didn’t just suddenly crash en route to us, either. For starters, you don’t get that hypothermic in fifteen minutes, especially not when you’re dry, wrapped in a blanket, and clutched to someone’s chest. The owners said he was unresponsive when they picked him up. That poor animal was toast, and you fucking knew it when you let those poor people walk out your door. You knew it, you miserable shitstain. How dare you tell them that he was looking better and would probably be okay? How dare you do that to them? Offering them that false hope just made it that much harder on them to lose him, you know.

We flogged that pitiful little creature for two hours because they couldn’t accept that he would just up and die after you said he was looking better. Two hours, huge fucking gobs of money, and an unimaginable amount of emotional and psychological suffering, all because you wouldn’t level with them.

Why? Why couldn’t you tell them their dog was probably hosed? Why did you have to put them and him through all that? Was it because you didn’t want to see the way their faces crumbled when we told them there was nothing more to be done? Was it because you didn’t want to hear their sobs as they petted him for the last time? Was it because you didn’t want to be the one to have to ask them what they wanted to do with the body? Was it because you didn’t want to have to be the one to hand them the coffin and see them lose what little composure they’d regained?

Well, fuck you, buddy. Fuck you up the ass with an extra-large branding iron. None of that stuff was on my list of fun things to do today, either.

You know, I think I’d rather believe you were incompetent than believe anyone could deliberately put that family through that. Looking better, my fucking ass.

2

Was it because they wanted to hand off the blame, the responsibility, and the legal liability to you? Let’s face it, they can now (dis)honestly say that the dog died while in your care. If that’s their motive, then they are indeed asswipes.

3

Wow. That sounds like it really, really sucks.

Is there some kind of licensing board or professional organization you can write a letter to? I know it wouldn’t result in sanctions or anything, but maybe it’ll get added to a list of complaints and someone will notice or something…

4

What a craven wretch.

5

Asshole vets like that are why we are thrilled to have the practice we go to, even though it is fractionally more expensive than the one slightly closer to us…

I would rather use a veterinary who is honest with their customers about their animals health. I know it must hurt you guys as much to tell us when there is nothing more that can be done :frowning: but it is way better than lying :rolleyes:

6

I don’t think it’s an issue of legal liability. He was apparently in pretty rough shape when they got him, too (although he was presumably more than an organ donor at that point. There’s no liability in an animal being too sick or injured for you to save. It happens quite a lot, unfortunately, and since we see the worst of the worst, it happens all the time with us. (No, really, we lose or euthanize so many animals that the crematorium give us custom-made tags for our body bags, with the clinic name preprinted. The tags are almost kind of funny, in a really sick, sad way.) There’s usually no blame involved in not being able to save a dog, either. If the animal gets worse in your care, then yeah, the owners tend to blame you even when it’s just the natural progression of the disease.

The only possibilities I can think of are that he just didn’t want to deal with it (and I don’t really blame him for that, it was a really sucky scene), or that he gave the dog some IV steroids and very briefly got his heart and lungs working sort of normally again, then thought he’d be able to go on like that through the night. His heart rate and respirations did improve when we gave him the steroids (and the dextrose, his blood glucose was 23–it ought to between 80 and 120.) We could all tell it was only temporary, though.

Metacom, what would we say, exactly? That he’s overly optimistic about the dog’s chances for recovery, or overly confident in our abilities? Those are not actionable offenses, even when they happen a lot.

These things happen from time to time. Referrings send us cases that there’s nothing anyone short of God can do, and the owners arrive all hopeful and optimistic with no real idea of how grave the situation is. We all hate those cases. Hate, hate hate them. They’re even worse than the cases where the owners can’t afford treatment, but the referring sends them anyway. Both situations are just a waste of the owner’s time and money, and gets their hopes up only to have them dashed. Last night was just an especially bad case, and it’s been a really shitty, depressing week anyway.

Since Friday, I’ve seen exactly six animals I was fairly sure weren’t toast–my four, a kitten whose new roommate had picked him up and slobbered him, and a vaccine reaction dog who was bouncing around when I left last night. Everyone else is either already dead, or is probably going to die. Except maybe for that really evil one in the oxygen cage. The ones who are biting their blankets because they can’t get through the door at you, they live forever.

7

I got the impression that the dog was dead (in the brain-is-gone-even-if-its-still-gasping-kinda sense) when he sent it over to you guys, which would seem to demonstrate a lack of ability or profesionalism. Perhaps I misunderstood your post. Sorry.

8

Yeah, but he still had a (microscopic) chance of recovery, and our vets have been known to pull off some spectacular, near-miraculous saves. Overestimating his odds of recovery, while spectacularly shitty and completely unfair to the patient and the owner, isn’t an actionable offense. Neither is overestimating what we might be able to do. Even if they got letters about this sort of situation on this guy every single week for twenty years, there’s no official action that could be taken against him. Unless you can show outright incompetence, there’s really not much they can do, and this just doesn’t fill the bill. That’s part of what makes it so incredibly sucky.

And, you know, it would pretty much be a he said, she said kind of thing. When he called in the transfer, he told us the dog was looking better, than he had good gum color and perfusion, etc. We have no way to definitively disprove any of that. All we know is that he had to have been cold and hypoglycemic before transfer, and that he was unresponsive. He could conceivably have been pink and breathing halfway decently and still be cold, unresponsive, and hypoglycemic. It’s doubtful, but possible.

9

So, if a person comes in with a sick animal and can’t afford care you refuse to treat the animal? (Assuming the animal could be saved at all.)

10

We offer them whatever options we can, and we’ll often go through the meds of dead patients to see if there’s anything we can send home with them if they want to go that route, or give them leftover fluids for free, or pay for pain meds out of our own pockets, but in a depressing number of cases, all we can really offer them is euthanasia.

The sad but true long and short of it is that we’re a business, and if we freebie ourselves out of business, then we can’t save any of them.

11

If it were me, I would make an appointment to see the vet who referred them and have a little chat about setting up expectations and how it made you feel to be put in that situation. I’m assuming you know who the vet was?

12

That had to suck. I can’t imagine being either the medical team, or the owners in that case. :frowning: My comforts to everyone involved. I’d at least have a quiet chat with the guy, asking him to at least be more reserved when talking to people he’s referring. Of course, the owners could have in their desperation read more into what the other vet said too. Sad business all around.

alice_in_wonderland Such things as you imply don’t happen very often at all, and usually only the most money grubbing veterinary “businesses” will do so. Usually, they will offer you what options they can, with choices of treatments varying in expense, in case you should think you could budget the amount. The vet my parents went to was even merciful enough to work out a payment plan with them so our beloved pets could get the care they needed. He even came out, and put the poor puppy to sleep that the neighborhood bully had run over with his bike free of charge.

The kid had run over the whole litter*****, and the most injured one had to be put to sleep out of mercy. The vet got our frantic call at home, on a weekend at supper time and rushed over. That’s compassion. :frowning: (We’d let the mom and puppies out into the yard for the late afternoon breeze, to enjoy the grass and some sunny play. The person watching them had to go inside to use the bathroom, and came back to find the bully running over the pups.)
*****Our young dog escaped and managed to get pregnant the first time she came into heat. We did spay her after that litter though.

13

:eek:

my god! - what the hell kinda kid does that? And what did you to do him? You’d be fully justified feeding the dam kid the bike, I think. (Though I imagine you had other priorities than vengence at the time)

14

Yeah, just been there and done that last week. My 9 year old dog developed spondylosis (sp) and the vet kept giving him antibiotics and vitamins, telling me I just needed to “have a little patience, this stuff isn’t magic.” The dog suffered for almost 10 days before I found a decent vet and had him put down. The evil cock-sucker I used first had no idea what was the matter and was using amoxycillin like some kind of magic charm. I keep wondering how many dogs that ass has screwed up over the years. Torturing bastard.
The dog was half St Bernard and half husky, cool blue eyes on a giant dog that loved to play. Quite a rarity in the Middle East.

Regards

Testy

15

Testy, I’m sorry for your loss. It sounds like he was a beautiful dog and a fine companion. Spondylosis can be a hard condition to get under control, especially in a large dog, even when you’re using anti-inflammatories and pain meds instead of antibiotics and vitamins. :confused: Out of curiosity, are they sure that’s what it was based on x-rays, or were they speculating based on physical exam?

There’s not many ways for the owners to misinterpret the guy calling our clinic and telling the ER vet on duty that the dog was looking better and that he was pink and just needed monitoring through the night. Those are, to my knowledge, the only specifics he gave us on the dog’s current condition. He didn’t give us a whole lot of specifics on the dog’s previous condition, come to think of it. Usually they send a copy of the chart (at least that day’s entry), so we know what’s been done with the animal and how the case is trending. We didn’t get that, so we have no idea what had been going on with the dog all day.

I couldn’t talk to him without seriously overstepping my bounds and getting my ass jumped, anyway. This is ultimately an issue between the vets and between the referring vet and the owner.

I hope you looked into having that kid charged with animal cruelty. The laws vary with location, and the most a kid would get is a slap on the wrist, but in many places you could at least get a scare thrown into him.

On the bright side, the hellish nightmare of death and destruction (it’s been a very long, bag-n-tag sort of week) is over for a few days. The most distressing thing likely to happen today is having to choose between the Whoppers and the Milk Duds when we go see Shrek II. (Yeah, yeah, I know, mindless fluff. But it’s amusing mindless fluff, and it beats the hell out of two hours of death and heartbreak. Besides, the lesbians in the group have no desire to see Troy and drool over Brad Pitt’s skimpy costume. Go figure.) And tomorrow, we eat cheesecake, get drunk, and buy sex toys.

16

They did a blood-test first to eliminate other things and then did an x-ray. The (good) vet diagnosed the disease the first time he saw the dog walk but did the rest to confirm.
I had no idea the life-span of large dogs was so much shorter than that of small dogs. I expected him to live quite a few more years as he was well cared for and had been very healthy up until the last few weeks. He’ll be missed, most of all by my wife and daughter.

Regards

Testy

17

It sounds like a hell of a weekend! :smiley:

Testy