State of Vet Care in the US

4X4Dodger wrote:
After living overseas for so long returning to the US always has it's surprises. But one of the worst was the state of Veterinary Care in the US.

So once outside I started thinking...What kind of education are we giving our vets that they know nothing of the history of the Dog, or that dogs dont all fit into the AKC breed designations. And how can you get out of any college, even VET school or High School for that matter, without knowing basic world geography, the history of the Vietnam conflict, the Khmer Rouge etc etc?

She noticed a sore on my dog Nigels undercarriage and mentioned it. I told her he scratched himself getting up his ranp, That we were watching it. He has a couple of those Cysts that older dogs get and the sore was on one of those...It was healing nicely. No fewer than 3 vets had told me what it was and I am confident it is not Cancer.

She thought it should be tested, I told her other vets had diagnosed it as a benign cyst, not unusual in dogs his age. Even the US Navy vets that travel with the hospital ship Hope (and others)had the same diagnosis.

I wonder did it ever occur to her that even if Nigel did have cancer it would be crazy and in fact cruel to put him through the pain and agony of the treatment at 12 years old? I had stage 4 head and neck cancer more than 10 years ago and had Chemo and radiation and 9 hour surgeries..;so there was nothing I can be told about having cancer.

This attitude of throwing money, drugs and more and more tests at our pets have resulted in a Vet visit that often times costs more than taking a human to the doctor, a completely ridiculous upside down state of affairs.

Jake

It is great that you have had the opportunity to travel the world. But I would not come to the conclusion that the veterinarian you visited was incompetent or uneducated because she was not familiar with world history. Her focus, like mine, may have been in the sciences. History classes were like a walk in the park compared to the rigors of the sciences, at least at the university that I graduated from. If your dog needed surgery, or had a complicated internal medicine problem, I will take the science major any day of the week.

The doctor's suggestion of testing the skin mass was not a suggestion of chemo, or some radical surgical procedure. Many serious cancers start out as innocuous appearing small skin masses, that if caught early and are removed, are cured. She was doing you a favor by providing you with options to consider. It sounds like the observation option worked for you this time. That may not always be the case.

And the bottom line, if you are not comfortable with this practitioner, find another one so that you will get your canine companion aid when needed.

Have a nice trip to Mexico.