#TheVeterinaryQueen

[theveterinaryqueen-blog]

Should I become a Veterinary Technician

Many people ask me pretty regularly if I think they should go to tech school and become a veterinary technician. I actually love talking to people about it because I have seen all of the aspects of our job and I feel as if I have a good insight to the pros and cons. I typically start by telling them that if they have a real passion for caring for animals it is a step in the right direction but that veterinary medicine is not for everyone, even if you love animals. It is also important to consider that you can go on many different route in the tech world: general practice, mixed, small or large animal, Specialty, ER, and research are just a few of the more common options. I personally like fast paced, high energy, exciting things and have been through a lot of death in my personal life (which means I understand it in a different light than most people do) and am very comfortable around loss. Because of that, I really enjoy ER but more importantly, I am good at ER. I don't like the typical pace of GP (I really like not knowing what is about to get rushed back at any moment) so I chose a position that worked for my needs. I think I would like working with large animals too (I was raised on a farm where we typically vetted our own livestock for a marjory of their issues) but do not have much clinic experience so I am not sure how well the fit would be. Knowing what type of animals you are comfortable with is important too. If you were raised with exotics, you might make a great exotic tech. If you weren't, I would advise spending some time around people who do have them and figure out if you like those species. If you are very intelligent and retain information well, you may make an excellent internal medicine tech (I must add that I worship the knowledge and skill level of the internal medicine techs at my hospital! They are the best and brightest.). If you have a hard time accepting the circle of life and death takes a large toll on you, oncology and ER may not be the best place for you.

I always recommend job shadowing at MULTIPLE clinics and settings to make sure you are comfortable being around animals, sick, broken, and healthy, old and young, gentle, timid and aggressive. Loving animals and treating ill animals are very different.

There are different routes to getting to a tech/vet assistant role( in some places techs and vet assistants are the same apart from one is licensed/certified/registered and the other is not while other clinics will have vet assistants as truly assistants and they are at a lower skill level). You can go through an accredited 2 year program and then typically you will sit for the test or you can work your way up through the ranks. I think both can bring very valuable things to the table. I work very closely with another tech and one of us worked our way through the ranks while the other went straight into tech school and then straight into our hospital and we work really well together.

I know many certified/registered/licensed techs have a problem with techs who work their way through the ranks. I have personally been attacked many times by CVTs who, to my face, call me a lesser skilled person because they went to school and accumulated debt and I did not. To be very forward and honest, I do very poorly in class room settings. I always have. My agriculture classes were always my best grades and stuck with me because most of our classes were held in the barn or green house learning hands on. I do poorly when sitting down writing notes but when I get to actually do or see something happen in front of my eyes, i absorb all of the information. And i believe that is what makes me so good at my job. I didn't fry my poor brain making it do something that it doesn't like. I learned on the job and saw mistakes and good lessons that techs made and learned that way. No, I didn't have to pay for a tech program (I have taken many courses plus my hospital offers CE to all techs certified or not so I take many CEs and have certification in subjects that those techs who belittle me do not have) but I am just as qualified. So do not let your fear of school stop you. If you do elect to go my route, just understand that you will face many road blocks ( some legal issues, some will be issues with others in the field) and it will take a while to become skilled enough to work alone but it is totally worth it! If you want to go through a program, there are some awesome programs out there both on campus and online depending on your needs.

And one of the biggest things I tell people who are considering vet tech is that they must love what they do, not what they make. Technicians typically do not make much money and you have to be okay with that. Do not go into this profession thinking that techs must make a lot of money. In some places, techs are lucky to make a few dollars over minimum wage (warning: if you work your way up instead of sitting and passing your test, you will probably make much less than the certified techs around you even if you are more qualified. It's unfair but how the game is played). The pay will also depend on your specialty and location (often specialty techs make more than GP but that is hospital to hospital dependent). Some areas also will pay more or less depending on the income level of locals. It is important to realize that you will not be rolling in the dough simply from this job. But if you love what you do, it can be worth it. I LOVE my job and get paid poorly. It's a toss up and for me, the work that I get to do won.

I think teching is a great job. It is not for everyone but if you are up to the challenge, please come have fun with us! We are in a national tech shortage (ESPECIALLY in ER) and we need more techs. I did not post this to discourage anyone, just prep you for a busy, but amazing, career choice. And no, you don't have to want to be a vet to be a tech!

🐕🐴🐒🦒🐁🐊🐠💊💉

[theveterinaryqueen-blog]

Dr. Google

We have all heard it before, “ I read on the internet...”. This wonderful world wide web is a great place to find recipes, learn new things, start a blog, meet new people. This big wonderful place is not the place to diagnose your pet or decide how we should treat your pet. I get it, it is natural to want to be prepared and if that is the case, attempt to search on the website of the vet clinic that you are going to or veterinary teaching program websites. Those websites will not diagnose your cat’s sneezing however they MAY provide you with a little background information on what may happen when you head into the vet’s office. At my hospital, and many other vet field friends that I have, like to call searching the web referring to Dr. Google. The world wide web does not have a medical degree, real life experience in a veterinary job, and can be edited by quite literally anybody (even you could if you wanted to). There are  multiple websites with “detailed research” stating that garlic prevents fleas on dogs. Did you know that garlic is toxic to dogs? It very well may prevent fleas, I truly do not know, what I know is that you could make your dog very sick or potentially kill him/her if you used garlic on your dog’s food every day. We have all seen how the internet can turn any symptom into cancer. I have had countless clients bring their pets in with minimal symptoms and tell me that they believe their animal has cancer. When I ask what makes them think that? They respond that they read it online. 

If you post on a social media website that your dog has been having bloody diarrhea, do not take advice from your friends about “what they did to fix it when their dog had that symptom”. I know that everyone hates it when I tell them that they should see a vet if they are concerned, but you really should. Just because your friend’s dog got better after force syringing it Gatorade, does not mean you should do that to your dog ( this is actually something that I read on a social media conversation a few years back. The poster of the question thought that sounded like a great way to avoid going to the vet.. their dog later became very ill.). I regularly see people asking about their pets symptoms online and receiving silly answers. 

If you can’t afford to go into the vet every time something happens, you can call your vet (this is part of why patient/doctor relationship is so important) and ask them if they are concerned about the symptoms. Now, they cannot diagnose your pet over the phone but they are usually pretty good at telling you if you should come in right away, wait and watch to see if things change, or could head in to the office in a few days. You can even call an emergency office to ask. Take into consideration that an ER clinic will usually say you should come in or i have to leave it up to you if you are comfortable waiting or want to bring them in. They will not ( or should not) ever tell you that you shouldn’t come in if you are concerned. You can use their answer to help guide you in your decision. If an owner elects to wait at home, I will frequently tell them to keep a very close eye on their pet and if they change their mind at any time to come in but here are some signs of concern to really keep an eye for. If I and/or the doctor on staff are concerned about the symptoms that you have provided over the phone, I will urge you to come in. This is how most clinics work. 

Lastly, you know your dog best. I recently had a patient who was bouncing off the walls, trying to lick everybody and just wanted to play. Her owner informed me “you would never know it but this is her being lethargic because she is usually a complete nut case”. I may see a happy as could be dog but you see that she just isn’t right and you need to trust your instinct when you think something is wrong. If you googled her symptoms, you would not get anything truly helpful and probably would have not come in and we would have never caught her problem ( I do not have permission to post the details of her case but she was in the beginning stages of something and we were able to treat her before she really got ill!!). 

Dr. Google does not have enough accurate medical information. Your veterinarian and their staff do. It is actually easier to call your vet than spend an hour on the internet researching symptoms (and getting false information). 

[theveterinaryqueen-blog]

Emergency Care While You’re Away

Okay, so let's talk what to do when you are leaving your pet with a pet sitter/family member/friend while you are going on vacation. Working in an emergency veterinary hospital, I see pets come in for everything from "a single cough" to critical "hit by car". From time to time, the pet is brought in by someone who is not the owner. This could mean that the roommate, cousin, sister, friend or pet sitter has brought the pet in while the owner is away. Typically the person caring for the dog fails to tell us that they are not the owner until we are halfway through the history and we ask about previous medical conditions and they inform us that this is not their pet and they have no idea but don't think there are previous issues. My typical next question is "does the owner know that you are here?". Answers vary from "yes I have already called" to "I don't want to tell them that something is wrong until we know for sure". I know every hospital and every state is a little different on policy/laws but at my hospital we are not supposed to treat an animal without an owners consent unless death is imminent or the doctor otherwise deems absolutely necessary. Our policy states that consent can come directly from the owner, over the phone, or through written permission. Without an owner saying it is ok, we are very limited in what we could do. I previous was involved in a case where the pet sitter did not want to contact the owner and after a very long discussion and contacting our hospital management ( the pet's situation was not life threatening at the moment however we wanted to provide pain medication and antibiotics at minimum), it was decided that we could not administer medications to the pet. While signing a document consenting to leaving the hospital, the pet sitter gave in and attempted to contact the owner. It turns out, the owner does not believe in the use of antibiotics or pain medications. If we had administered the antibiotics as the pet sitter had requested, we could have been responsible for treating a pet against the owners wishes/beliefs.  I have also faced this situation being a pet sitter myself. I require all of my clients sign a document with basic pet information, a quick medical history, and notes authorizing me to make certain medical decisions with the help of the veterinarian if the situation were to arrive that I could not contact them. I discuss very basic medical decisions in case of an emergency and we discuss CPR and DNR statuses if their pet were to code. My clients are asked to write down their decisions and sign to approve. I typically keep hard copies for vacation stays at their home in case an emergency happens while I am there as well as electronic copies on my phone and computer and my regular walking clients have a hard copy at home with electronic records easily accessible. This ensures that the pet receives the care that it deserves and that the owners wishes are accounted for. I still attempt to contact the owner if emergencies occur however not everyone can be reached at all times (when they are on a plane, it’s the middle of the night, or they are out on an adventure without service). 

Moral of the story?

Always leave WRITTEN permission for your pet care provider to get care for your pet while you are away in the unfortunate situation that something goes wrong. 

Pass it on!

TheVeterinaryQueen 

[theveterinaryqueen-blog]

The art of reverse paw prints!

The back story is that there was a miscommunication between the techs on how many paw prints the owner wanted. They wanted 4 but the tech making them heard 3. After the patient had been processed, it was brought to our attention the incorrect number had been made. Luckily I have mastered the art of reverse paw prints!

[theveterinaryqueen-blog]

“It’s going to cost how much to see my dog?”

Working in emergency medicine is exciting. We enjoy what we do, the new challenges that each night brings, and the not knowing what could walk through the doors at any time. We love what we do. What we don’t love is how patient care is often determined by money. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times that an animal has left AMA (against medical advice), left with very minimal outpatient care, or even been euthanized due to money restrictions. To quickly clarify the euthanasia aspect before it creates anger, it is primarily in regards to cases that could be fine with expensive treatment but will die without the expensive treatment ( for example, if a dog has a GDV, it would die very quickly without surgery. not everyone can afford surgery. some cannot even afford the exam fee). We do not simply euthanize any animal due to money. If the pet is suffering and/or has a fatal if not treated condition, euthanasia is the kindest option 

Being an ER practice, we have clients of ALL financial backgrounds come in. We have had homeless clients without a single dollar to their name come in and we have had people who are able to hospitalize for three weeks and drop $30,000 like it’s pocket change. I have noticed that MOST of our emergency clients fall in the zone of less than $1,000. That amount could potentially help their pet or provide enough treatment to get the pet until the primary vet opens. But that always depends on the case and what is wrong (or if diagnostics are too expensive, what we believe is wrong). Some animals simply need a pain medication to help them through till the morning or fluids to help their dehydration levels. Others need extensive diagnostics and treatment or they will suffer. There are also some things that time is of the essence. An example of that would be if a dog ingested a toxin. We CAN do outpatient treatment however if the client couldn’t afford the outpatient treatment and elected to wait until the next day, they could make the dog’s condition SO much worse, in some cases it can be fatal. 

Every clinic is a little different but at mine, the emergency technicians are the ones who present detailed estimates to owners. The doctors typically give them a ball park prior to us entering the room and if the owner freaks out, they can try to adjust the plan accordingly. Unfortunately, clients tend to not understand the reality of the number the doctor said until they see it on paper. Depending on the estimate and the client’s personality, I will either go over each individual item and the cost or group items (hospitalization and fluids v.s. hospitalization set up costs xxx.xx, hospitalization for 24 hours costs xxx.xx, fluid set up costs xxx.xx, fluids for 24 hours costs xxx.xx). More times than not, clients cannot afford what we believe is the best option for their pet. This happens so frequently, our technicians typically ask the doctors before we head into the room, if the owner can’t afford this, what can we take off and if we do step by step diagnostic/treatment, what is their preferred order. In some situations, the owners elect to leave with minimal or no treatment. Typically, this happens after they get angry at us for our costs. And you know what? I get it. To an extent. Veterinary medicine is expensive, very, very expensive. If I didn’t get a discount, I would struggle with the costs too (even with my hefty discount it is still hard to swallow). Owning a pet can quickly become expensive ( they say there is no such thing as a free dog/cat) but that is not our fault. In order to stay open 24/7 and offer emergency services/procedures/surgery/scopes, we must charge a higher rate. We have emergency doctors on staff all night, weekend, and holidays, at minimum one technician at all times (and at most times we have multiple technicians to provide more prompt care to clients, patients, and inpatients). We must keep the power on 24/7,  stock the medications and supplies to treat your pet (and often ER medications are not cheap), and we have to surgeons/internal medicine specialists and anesthesia specialized technicians on call at all times in case of a surgery/scope necessity. 

I make pocket change over minimum wage. Emergency doctors are some the lesser paid veterinarians. Stop accusing us of “only being in it for the money” and intentionally “over-charging” or “stealing your money”. We did not choose our jobs to make money. I often tell people who are interested in a career in emergency vet med (and who want to tech in practically all vet med) that if they want to always be financially stable, this is not the job for them. This is a job of passion, not money. 

To make a VERY long story short, instead of yelling at the technician/doctor who just wants to help your pet feel better, consider where we stand. It breaks our heart when we can’t help an animal because of money. Instead, you should plan and have a pet emergency fund. Before you even get a pet, you should save up enough money to take them to the emergency vet the first day they come home ( I have had hit by car cases and the owner has no money because they spent $2000 buying the dog the day before. Also, think about Parvo.. that can be a very expensive illness that can start being symptomatic the day you bring it home or withing a few days). I also advise as many people as I can to get pet insurance. There are countless insurances out there and most can be customized ( I like having emergency only insurance. It is pretty inexpensive and they usually cover a lot). 

ER visits can be expensive but by remaining calm and kind and by planning ahead, they can be so much easier.