# How good are veterinarians at treating humans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 11, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844 "2016-02-11T18:02:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/41 "2016-02-12T07:07:55Z")
It has been established that Bones McCoy doesn’t know much about treating Klingons. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/42 "2016-02-12T10:54:26Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Not that I disagree with your broader point, but I take my cats to a vet who only does cats (although he used to be a large animal vet for a zoo) and on the vet’s advice, my old-lady cat gets a baby aspirin a couple times a week. It seems to help her arthritis quite a lot. Well, yes, but you’re taking your cat to a _cat specialist_ to prescribe a drug for your cat that is more toxic to cats than humans… which makes sense. I didn’t say aspirin was instantly lethal to cats, but it is more likely to cause side effects, some of them quite serious. You’re trading some risk for your cat’s improved quality of life, which is fine, but what’s a relatively benign, over the counter medicine for people is something that cats should take only under expert advice. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/43 "2016-02-12T11:55:47Z")
> [@Nansbread1](#): > > How did cutting up medicines lead you to the conclusion the medications for humand and cats is the same. Was it colour texture smell taste etc. I had to give one of my cats a thyroid pill twice a day (what a pain in the nuts!:mad: ) and once when I refilled it at Walgreens a pharmacist told me “This specific medication is made for humans and in 32 years I’ve only dispensed it for cats”. He then told me there are a couple of meds made for humans that few humans ever actually take but cats and dogs do. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/44 "2016-02-12T12:37:33Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Well, yes, but you’re taking your cat to a _cat specialist_ to prescribe a drug for your cat that is more toxic to cats than humans… which makes sense. I didn’t say aspirin was instantly lethal to cats, but it is more likely to cause side effects, some of them quite serious. You’re trading some risk for your cat’s improved quality of life, which is fine, but what’s a relatively benign, over the counter medicine for people is something that cats should take only under expert advice. Hmm, I guess she takes a lower dose than a person would. She’s, in round numbers, 1/20th the weight of a person. The maximum dose for a person is 12 tablets a day, although I’d think you wouldn’t want to take that much on a regular basis. She takes 1/4 tablet every ~3 days. So she takes about 1/150 as much as the maximum human dose, or per pound, perhaps a seventh or an eighth as much as a human. Or, about the same as a human taking 1.5 regular aspirin tablets a day, which would be a pretty low dose for something like arthritis. FWIW, my vet also said that the thing about chocolate being toxic to pets is also just a dosing difference. He says chocolate is nearly as toxic to humans as to cats and dogs, but if you leave your child alone with a pound of chocolate, the 50 pound child may eat 4 ounces, and then wander off because he’s had enough. Whereas if you leave your 10 pound dog alone with that chocolate he’s likely to eat the whole thing, because, you know, dogs. He also said it’s very rare for cats to be poisoned by chocolate, because they, like children, won’t usually eat enough to get more than a belly ache. And I suppose by taking my cats to a cat doctor, I am voting in favor of humans seeing a human doctor, even without the legal thing. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/45 "2016-02-12T12:41:29Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > I had to give one of my cats a thyroid pill twice a day (what a pain in the nuts!:mad: ) and once when I refilled it at Walgreens a pharmacist told me “This specific medication is made for humans and in 32 years I’ve only dispensed it for cats”. He then told me there are a couple of meds made for humans that few humans ever actually take but cats and dogs do. I wonder if it’s too small a pill to be a common dose for people? Thyroid dosing is dicey, and people take wildly varying amounts, and maybe there are some small pills to accommodate that, but they rarely useful for people? Or maybe it was a cheap old thyroid hormone extracted from dead meat animals, not the newer synthetic one most people take? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/46 "2016-02-12T13:38:27Z")
Oh, and don’t read too much into Tylenol’s high toxicity to animals, either. It’s also got an awfully high toxicity for humans. IIRC, its therapeutic index (the ratio of a lethal dose to a typical dose) is the lowest of any routinely-used drug, even including the illegal ones. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/47 "2016-02-12T14:26:03Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > Let’s take for instance the veterinarian who is looking after the _orangutans_ and the _chimpanzees_ at a large zoo: Wouldn’t it be fair to assume that he should encounter few problems when charged with providing care for a _homo sapiens sapiens_? In terms of gross morphology and shared genetic lineage and what not, humans and chimps and orangutans are very similar. That doesn’t mean our medical problems are similar. A chimp vet would probably be better at casting a human fracture or resetting a dislocation or whatever. But the infectious diseases that humans suffer from are generally dissimilar from those suffered by chimps, because we have very little contact with chimps. We largely share our diseases with _domesticated_ animals. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/48 "2016-02-13T06:02:01Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > I had to give one of my cats a thyroid pill twice a day (what a pain in the nuts!:mad: ) and once when I refilled it at Walgreens a pharmacist told me “This specific medication is made for humans and in 32 years I’ve only dispensed it for cats”. He then told me there are a couple of meds made for humans that few humans ever actually take but cats and dogs do. I’m curious - what was it? Propulsid (cisapride) was extensively used for people for quite a while, mostly for acid reflux and gastroparesis, but it was removed from the human market about 10 years ago due to the high incidence of drug interactions. It’s still available for veterinary use. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/49 "2016-02-13T06:03:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and don’t read too much into Tylenol’s high toxicity to animals, either. It’s also got an awfully high toxicity for humans. IIRC, its therapeutic index (the ratio of a lethal dose to a typical dose) is the lowest of any routinely-used drug, even including the illegal ones. Cats lack an enzyme that metabolizes it, so just plain old don’t give them Tylenol. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/50 "2016-02-13T06:30:34Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > would a seasoned veterinary be able to remove an appendix A veterinarian would only be treating a human in an emergency situation. And so in that case, for any major surgery, the lack of a sterile operating room, anesthesiologist, etc. would be of more concern than the fact they were more used to animals. I guess the follow up question would be, in an emergency how useful is an animal operating theater, equipment, and anesthesia, etc. for a humans? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/51 "2016-02-13T11:15:38Z")
There have been instances of laypeople performing or being talked through emergency surgery - but that doesn’t mean it should be your first choice! If things are so dire that you’re about to do an appendectomy via instructions over a radio or instructions in a textbook then of course having the vet in your group do it is probably a good idea. Thank Og that’s a very rare situation. Surgery can be done in primitive conditions (I have a book with an account of a hand surgeon re-attaching severed tendons after a machete accident in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, operation successful and patient recovered and regained use of his hand), it’s just that the risk of complications goes up. Sometimes way up. It becomes all about cost/benefit ratios. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/52 "2016-02-13T14:57:01Z")
Veterinarian speaking in: 1. Humans have cooties and are icky. 😉 I have no desire to treat them, that’s why I’m a veterinarian. 😃 2. Yes, there are specialties, veterinary specialization range from “specialized through going to CEs and experience and workshops” to “complete rigorous residency training program akin to human medicine and taking boards and calling yourself a diplomate or fellow or something like that”. I’m in the second camp, but know people who have some clinical specialties thanks to the first (in exotics, in surgery, in anesthesia, in dentistry). In this cases, they can say they specialize in X, but not that they are boarded. 3. Most veterinary students train in a lot of species before ending up working in a few selected ones. So most veterinarians can do basic wound repair and stitching and suturing over a large range of species because the basic principles of wound healing and treatment don’t change overall. As a curiosity, I’m a pathologist, so even though I may not directly treat, I probably know more about equine diseases than a small animal veterinarian or know more about diseases in reptiles than an equine vet. 4. Veterinary dentistry is very different from human dentistry. As mentioned, animals undergo general anesthesia, even for general clean up (which I’ve done). Most humans just open the mouths as told and keep them open. 😉 The number of teeth varies by species. The roots and location of the tooth roots varies by species. The biggest tooth in the mouth can also vary by species. And also, different species have tooth that are composed and function differently than humans. Finally, the diseases and conditions they acquire are also different from humans. 5. Baby aspirin is used in cats (and maybe dogs), but the dosages are indeed small, and have to be checked by the veterinarian. So this case is an OTC human drug that has to be monitored and approved by a vet to use in a cat for a specific condition. Giving kitty pills of even baby aspirin because you think it is in pain would be very irresponsible. 6. As mentioned, humans and animals livers work differently. They can all metabolize the drugs, but some pathways are available for humans while they are rarely used in other animals. Tylenol is more toxic to animals because the pathway that we humans used is not the primary pathway that other animals use. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/53 "2016-02-13T15:21:58Z")
> [@KarlGrenze](#): > > Humans have cooties and are icky. 😉 I have no desire to treat them, that’s why I’m a veterinarian. 😃 I take it that we cannot count on you during the zombie apocalypse. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![starwarsfreek42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@starwarsfreek42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starwarsfreek42)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/54 "2016-02-14T04:30:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and don’t read too much into Tylenol’s high toxicity to animals, either. It’s also got an awfully high toxicity for humans. IIRC, its therapeutic index (the ratio of a lethal dose to a typical dose) is the lowest of any routinely-used drug, even including the illegal ones. Tylenol is safe-ish for fairly healthy dogs in the appropriate dosage, but it will absolutely kill a cat. [Cite](https://www.addl.purdue.edu/newsletters/1998/spring/acet.shtml). [Cite](http://www.vetstreet.com/care/acetaminophen-toxicity-in-cats-and-dogs). [Cite](http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+1677&aid=2226). I work for a veterinarian and we see it happen a couple of times a year. Please do not give your pet ANY over the counter medication without calling and asking a veterinarian first. I can testify that we do prescribe plenty of human medications to animals including new expensive drugs and old cheap ones. Prednisone, phenobarb, Lasix, allopurinol, all manner of antibiotics, opiates, even decongestants and cough medicine. One of my own cats has feline asthma and uses a human Flovent inhaler (with an adapter, of course) just like they give human asthmatics. There’s a big book in the back where the boss man looks up dosages. I see no reason a veterinarian, in an emergency like a zombie apocalypse, couldn’t pick up some human medical texts and make some very accurate diagnoses and figure out treatment plans. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/55 "2016-02-14T13:36:04Z")
> [@starwarsfreek42](#): > > I see no reason a veterinarian, in an emergency like a zombie apocalypse, couldn’t pick up some human medical texts and make some very accurate diagnoses and figure out treatment plans. Thanks, I’ll put your name down. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/56 "2016-02-15T12:21:13Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I’m curious - what was it? I honestly don’t remember. That cat died in 2011 at age 20. It was an absolute bitch to give him those pills, but I miss hm every day! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/57 "2016-02-15T16:07:13Z")
I’ve pilled four cats, three of them regularly. I’d say that the difficulty of shoving a pill into a cat varies a great deal from cat to cat. Our currently-treated cat doesn’t mind much, and the process is easy, and we do it holding her in a lap. If she hated it, I doubt we’d bother for something like a little arthritis. One cat hated it, until one day, while getting ready to do it, my mom had the pill in front of the cat’s face and he just ate it. It turned out, that pill tasted good to him (or possibly, he figured out that he could avoid the unpleasant part by eating the pill on his own.) Either way, after that, we just picked him up and put the pill in front of him, and waited for him to eat it on his own. Easy peasy. Another cat took two people and both risked getting scratched. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/58 "2016-02-15T18:01:47Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > Indeed, specialization seems to be the issue here. I once read that there are now even veterinarians who specialize in animal dentistry. Why shouldn’t a medical professional enter this field who was trained as a (human) dentist? Or, more broadly, are there accelerated programs that allow an MD to become a DVM or vice versa, or would one have to start all the way from the beginning with Day 1 of the other school, taking basic science classes again? ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/59 "2016-02-26T12:02:18Z")
It works both ways: > [@](#): > > Gorilla baby born at Bristol Zoo in ‘rare’ C-section > > A baby gorilla is “doing well” after being delivered by Caesarean section in a rare operation at Bristol Zoo. > The Western lowland gorilla was born early, weighing 2lbs 10oz, after her mother showed signs of the potentially dangerous condition pre-eclampsia. > […] > The 11-day old Western lowland gorilla - a critically endangered species - **was delivered by gynaecologist Professor David Cahill who has delivered hundreds of human babies by C-section, but never a gorilla**. > “Along with having my own children, this is probably one of the biggest achievements of my life and something I will certainly never forget,” he said. (bolding mine) > **[Gorilla baby born at Bristol Zoo in 'rare' C-section](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-35629649)** > > A baby gorilla is "doing well" after being delivered by Caesarean section in a "rare" operation at Bristol Zoo. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844/60 "2016-02-26T13:08:21Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > It works both ways: Whats both ways ? In fact it demonstrates that its one way … the gyno surgeon (who works with humans … ) was considered more capable than a vet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-veterinarians-at-treating-humans/745844.md?page=4)