Pet medicine portal - Choosing a vet- Today Show?

Choosing a vet- Today Show?

Did anyone see the Today Show this morning? They had a segment on choosing your vet. Dr, Louise Murray has written a book called "Vet Confidential." She made some very good points about interviewing your vet to be sure that they are practicing high quality medicine. I thought it was a great segment because I find that most pet owners think that all vets are alike. The worst is when someone does not understand why a $200 spay is better than a $50...often the cheaper places don't use balanced anesthesia or monitoring. Did anyone else see this? Here is a link to the info on the Today Show's website. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25413634/ What do you think? Does Dr. Murray do a good job explaining? Do you agree? Actually, most vets are vets because they love animals. The pay is crap and the hours are brutal. I work 60-80 hours per week and make about $12-19/hr when you break it down: I could make more managing a Walmart. Vets generally don't actually make money on s/n surgery: it is a loss leader. And most vets do a surprising amount of pro-bono work for the HES because they are so committed to the animal population. If your vet is the cheapest in town he is either not paying his staff enough money to live on and/or cutting corners. The average person does not see what happens in the back: bare handed surgery, injectable only anesthetics. My point was not to choose the most expensive vet, the point was not to use price at all to make your decision. Jade-O, what is the "pool water" thing mean? Do you think that that protects against heartworms? If your "cheap" vet told you that, it is worth what you paid, zilch. You are lucky that your dog did not get heartworms. I am not a "regular" vet: I am exclusively emergency medicine. I see the f-ups from other clinics. I had a heartworm positive dog in yesterday...heart failure. Now that dog is dying from a cheaply prevented disease. No amount o pool water would have stopped that dog from getting heartworms and to think that is ludicrous. TKS- Injectable only general anesthesia is below the standard of care and boarders on malpractice, unless you are employing local blocks or epidurals and intubation. Most practitioners that use injectable only do neither of these things. Pets are developing organ failure 5-7 years later due to poor blood pressure during these surgeries...that is if they make it through the surgery. Just because the animal made it through anesthesia does not make it a successful anesthesia. Dr. Murray, Thank you for responding. I also started a thread about this on VIN and one of your internmates as well as an intern that you had supervised responded about how amazing you are. Thanks for writing your book and I hope that it reaches many people. When I see the quality of care at several local clinics (both ones that I have had the misfortune of reliefing for and those that I have to "fix" in the e-clinic), I wish that there was a body of work that defined standards of care as there are in human medicine. I really worry about the clients and patients of these clinics.

Public Comments

I think that vet is in cahoots with NBC to make more money. MANY vets provide 50 dollar spays, because of the love of animals and do not want to see many unwanted pets in thee pound.
I think the idea that a more expensive vet is better is crap. What about low cost spay/neuter clinics? My vet is a lot cheaper than many in my area. Does that mean he cuts corners? No. The notion that you have to pay more money for a good vet is ridiculous. It is about the vet not the price tag. EDIT: Just because he is the "cheapest in the area" doesn't mean he has underpaid staff/cut corners. If price and pay are your concern maybe you should manage a Walmart.
There is a lot of truth to the saying you get what you pay for, but that doesn't mean you have to pay the highest prices to get good service and a caring vet. Also, I don't think you can compare using injectable anesthesia to ungloved surgery. The best surgeon is the one that knows and is comfortable with the tools and procedures he/she is using.
When we lived in Texas our vet was "cheap" but he cared about what he did. He didn't make a lot of money from being a vet but since we lived in a really rich suburb, everyone always gave him tips. Our dog rarely took heartworm medication and he said she didn't need it. (she drank pool water). He always offered different meds that would be cheaper and easier to find. We live in Colorado now and the medication for our dog is so much! He almost twice as much, and treats us like we mean nothing. We can't even go in with our dog, we have to sit in the waiting room. The meds he gave our dog, were to lurbicate her joint. (she is a dalmation) So, we called our old vet and asked him if fish oil would be good. Of course he agreed with us. And she is fine at 14 years old. It really depends on the vet, if they take the time to explain things, know your animal, and if they are willing to help out your dog if you can't completely afford it. ADD: Pool water is chlorinated water. Chlorine is a method of water purification. The use of chlorine has greatly reduced the prevalence of waterborne disease as it is effective against almost all bacteria and viruses, as well as amoeba. So yes it does effectively reduce heartworms and other deadly diseases. No, my dog isn't lucky nor am I stubborn.
I wish I had seen the program. I agree with you and not look for a vet that is cheap. I want the extra testing before surgery. I spend $250 for a neuter on my rottie. The vet even let me come in at the end of the surgery to watch. She is a Banfield vet, and I was the trainer. I saw what could happen if you don't spay your female and they get the pyrometria (sp). Facinating stuff to watch. Luckily this dog survived. The Banfield have windows if you want to watch the surgeries. Some of the vets will open up the window and some will not. There are some Banfield vets in the area I would never let them touch my animals. I need to have a good feeling and trust them. I like my vet. She knows that I have my own opinions about stuff and that I will research. I think that she respects that. I might not take her advise. The vet techs can try to make you feel like you are the worse owner for not doing what the vet tells you. My shih tzu has vasculitis. She said no more vaccines-yeah for her! She said that my rottie might have food allergies because of the ear infections. She recommends $65 bag of dog food-NOT. I researched food, changed him, and no ear infections since for $20 cheaper a bag. Another vet said that my sheltie had crystals in her urine. She told me to put her on a prescription food (I wouldn't feed the crap). I contacted my dog food company and she got me reading a book from a vet so I did what it said. I told the vet and she got rude and yelled at me. I gave her Vit. C, went back for a urinalysis, and no traces were found and never had a problem after that. She lived to be almost 17 years old. When I lived in San Diego I went to 3 different vets. Depending what I taking them in for. They were really cool vets. I could make payments to them unlike it is here in Texas at Banfield. Just being a trainer I was making more money that the managers in the store. The newer vets are having to pay off their student loans too when they graduate. The one thing that worries me about the vets at Banfield, is that they are limited on what they can do. They have a corporate, so here they go to school for all of those years and they can't practice like they were taught. What is up with that. So either they have to refer you to a specialist, or then what?
Hi! I am that Today Show vet - and I just want to reassure the person who was worried I might be "in cahoots with NBC to make more money" that I work for a non-profit, the ASPCA, and my goal (in life) is to keep animals safe and their human guardians informed. The segment was not about how much money you spend - a great vet is not defined by how much they charge but by the medicine they practice. Let's not focus on money but on keeping the animals safe and well. Thanks all of you so much for obviously caring very much about pets. :)
I can't help but respond to the advice the a dog that drinks pool water doesn't need heartworm preventative I live in Florida. EVERY dog needs it. By the water, inland, swampland, or in the city. All of them. That vet is giving deadly advice. What about price of vets? Some vets are better than others, some are just greedy. So price alone cannot tell you alot about the vet. You can have to check him/her out. I took my 12 year old Boston Terrier to my vet on Thursday, about three weeks ago. He had a stroke. He had a high temp that took two days to get back to normal, but then it kept on dropping. By Sunday morning, he was not geting up and walking at all. I took him to the emergency clinic on Sunday afternoon. They wanted to keep him overningt and run tests that they estimated to be $650.00 and they were going to do was tell me why he had a stroke and how bad his health was. I considered that to be greed. By Monday morning, it didn't take a vet to know my dog was not going to make it. I physically carried him back to my vet. I put Gizmo on the vet table and just laid there and couldn't even lift his head. After a few minutes of discussion, we put him down. I ran out of there crying, and just said, "bill me" I still haven't gotten a bill. I believe I got better service for free, from my regular vet, than I was going to get for $650.00. I guess to sum it up, I would say, don't let money dictate how you feel about your vet or his/her service.