President's Message Fall 2010

As this is being written, it is the beginning of Fall, and our clients are coming in with animals needing vaccines and well-care. We see empty-nesters who, now that the kids have gone off to college, realize that Fluffy has lost a lot of weight. Family practices in many parts of the country have seen an increase in cases of severely ill animals, because people cannot afford the specialty/tertiary care they once could.

Academy Update Fall 2010

Last November, 16 persons received a Credential in Veterinary Family Practice from UC Davis. From that group, 11 have come together to form the Academy of Veterinary Family Practice. Since UCD can no longer fund the program due to budget cuts, our primary goal at this time is to help that program continue. We hope to have the first on-line module ready to go by the Spring of 2011. Please keep your fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly! Read More

Hospice Resources

There was an informative newsletter issue of The Latham Letter (http://www.icraeastbay.org/LL_08_FA.pdf) devoted to veterinary hospice care.  It is Volume XXIX, Number 4, Fall, 2008.

A very good book on the subject is Kindred Spirit, Kindred Care: Making Health Decisions on Behalf of Our Animal Companions by Shannon Fujimoto Nakaya, DVM.  My clients and a few veterinarians in my area love it.  Here's a link:  http://www.kindredspiritkindredcare.com/book.html.

CD proceedings of both the 1st and 2nd International Symposiums on Veterinary Hospice Care held at UC Davis can be purchased from the Nikki Hospice Foundation for Pets, website:  www.pethospice.org.
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Black Hole in Medical Records

It hasn’t hit the mainstream media yet, but veterinarians across the state have discovered a quantum defect in the space-time continuum, that allows hours and hours of their hard labor to almost magically disappear. It’s a little known phenomenon called the Medical Record Quantum Singularity.

How you say? The old adage holds true, “if it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen.” As an example a medical record entry might be solely: “PE – WNL”. In our busy practices with a healthy “well pet” exam, we might be tempted to make such sparse notations. What isn’t recorded is any “data, including that obtained by instrumentation, from the physical exam” [CCR §2032.3 (a)(7)] which is required by law.

El visto del otro lado

(The view from the other side)

The concept of the human-animal bond (HAB) as a major factor in veterinary medicine has evolved over a period of time. While there has always been an informal recognition of the importance of that bond (Rome was reportedly founded by twins raised by wolves), we certainly have refined and re-examined this idea over recent years. We now relate the bond to our ability to practice medicine, and recognize it as a major factor in how we deal with both patients and clients. Read More