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Posted on 06/06/2025 2:34:29 PM PDT by OldGoatCPO
[What if] Innovative education models, including competency-based, three-year DVM programs, distributed clinical models, professional skills training, shared faculty, asynchronous offerings, distance learning, and AI-assisted instruction, enable new graduates to enter the workforce as competent, confident, and financially stable professionals.
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It began nearly 14 months ago. My dog had been with me since he was weaned. I knew him both physically and mentally like I would one of my children. Something was wrong. Took him to our vet hospital, the older vet said he believed me, but after blood work, x-rays, and other tests, he could find nothing. He said, "Let's keep tracking this and let me know of any changes." He would refer us to a Veterinary School and Hospital in the State if it continued. Shortly after, he left for another clinic.
Six months later, I am back and again telling the new vet something is wrong. The vet was adamant that nothing was wrong.
Three months later, I am back at the "hospital" again and this time I am pissed. My dog is going downhill, and any fool can see it. Just not the fool who was the next new vet to see him. I demanded an X-ray of his abdomen. The vet says OMG he has a large tumor between his liver and spleen, it has to be cancerous. I said hold on, that is precisely where a benign fat tumor (lipoma) is located and it was tested. "No he says, if it were a fatty tumor, it would not look like this. This is possibly a cancerous tumor. You need to take him immediately to have an ultrasound." Freaking out, we rushed him to a radiologist 50 miles away for an emergency ultrasound. Guess what, the tumor was a benign lipoma! But they did find the source of his problem, and it was treated. The next day, he was running and playing as if he were three again.
However, it was not a cure, just a treatment. We took him to a University Hospital where the cardiology team and internal medicine went to work. Turns out it was a chronic illness, probably since he was a puppy, but as he entered old age, he was having a harder time managing it. After three months of titrating medications, it was under control, and he was his young self again.
One month ago, all hell broke loose. We had a new GP (older) vet by this time. X-rays revealed no blockages, and his gastrointestinal tract and stomach appeared normal. Blood work is normal, and all tests are normal. After four days of medication, he was back to normal. But then, 1 week later, it was back again. As things became worse, we decided to have an ultrasound done; the first appointment was two days out. Worried because of his age, we called the University Hospital ER. They sent us to a local pet ER that would triage him and then transfer him to the University Hospital for an ultrasound the next day. I wish I had not done that.
The doctor at the pet emergency hospital wanted to cut him open because the X-ray could not find a blockage. We declined until the ultrasound was done. They said they wanted to keep him to observe him since a blockage can kill a dog rapidly. That did not add up, and the vet admitted as much. This had been going on for two weeks; he should have already been dead if it were a blockage. The vet said they would monitor him and administer an IV to help him rehydrate. I said no, he drank water several times that day, was not dehydrated, and has not vomited all day. He did not need an IV, and we did not want him sedated. They agreed, with no sedation and no IV, at least that was my understanding; they would do neither.
The next morning, they gave me a dog I barely recognized. He had a catheter installed(?), he was heavily sedated and pooping all over himself—the day before he did his business in the yard, and no diarrhea. The ER vet was convinced of the blockage and not only sedated him for the catheterization, but also administered medications and nutrients via the IV. From that day forward, he suffered from incontinence. What the hell did they do to my puppy?
At the University hospital ER, I started to get a bad feeling, not just about my puppy but about the vets. They immediately locked onto cancer and used his past illness as proof, and again, that benign growth. They had his records from internal medicine; it was a chronic illness, probably his entire life. If it were cancer, he would have died years ago. I mentioned this, and I may as well have been talking to a wall. They repeated a third set of X-rays that week. It showed a potential blockage? They took samples of fluid in his chest and abdomen. All the tests came back inconclusive. (He had just been tested in March, with the same results.) The chest and abdominal fluid was most likely from the IV he was not supposed to get. Finally, a thousand plus dollars later, they said, "We need to do an ultrasound." What the hell, that's why we're here. They took so long; I could have just gone to the original appointment. He received an ultrasound every two months, the last in April of this year. There were no problems noted in the abdomen.
Now ER ultrasound showed serious issues with his intestines. They were swollen and looked unhealthy. This did not appear in the ultrasound, less than a month ago, nor in the X-ray two weeks earlier. My wife is a medical professional; she has seen something similar before in elderly people, a bacterial infection of the gut. Also very common in older dogs! She asked if that could be the case with our puppy since its onset was so rapid, which is not the case with most cancers. The vet said it was possible, but no way to test without being invasive, and that could kill him. All the tests were negative for cancer. When we asked about just trying antibiotics, the vet said they would be too hard on his system. My wife said she understood, so why not administer the antibiotic via IV, even if it meant our puppy staying at the hospital for a couple of days? If given through an IV versus orally, it would not upset his already sensitive gut. The vet said no, suggesting it could make him worse. Worse than what, dying? This was an ER; they triage, treat if possible, and if not, send you home with or without your pet. The vet said that it would require input from internal medicine and they were not available. The vet then offered the option to euthanize our puppy. The vet said he looks miserable and is in poor condition. Of course he did! The first ER sedated an old dog, then you poked and prodded and gave him a a pain pill. They returned him to to us covered in his own poop! They never even cleaned him up! I would be miserable too!
He recovered from being so heavily sedated and did fine for a few days, but then started to refuse food. We called our vet, but he was on vacation. The vet standing in declined to provide any appetite stimulants because he did not know our dog, and the medication he was on could stimulate appetite. He had all the records, including those from the ER visits a few days prior. What else did he need? I checked and was advised he was on such a low dosage of prednisone that it would not stimulate his appetite. How did he not know that? By this point, our dog had not eaten anything except dog nutrient mixes for over a week, so we enrolled him in Hospice care. The hospice vet advised calling our vet and asking for Entyce to stimulate his appetite. Although he was sick, we had all his symptoms under control with the medications; he was not in any pain, if he were to eat, it would not have saved him, but he may have had a better quality of life during his remaining days. The stand-in vet again REFUSED he did not know the dog, and the regular vet would be back the next day. Entyce is not a controlled substance, WTH. Twenty-four hours later, our regular vet came back and gave us two doses of it. It can take Entyce 24-48 hours to work if a dog has gone a while without food. I first asked for an appetite stimulant 10 days earlier. Now he was too far along, and the entyce did not work. Two days later, we euthanised him to end his suffering.
From January to September, every vet said my dog was fine when he was not. When they finally did their job, they send the family into a panic over a tumor that was never a tumor because the vet cannot properly read an X-ray! We finally hit the jackpot with some very professional older vets and they saved his life. When the gut issues started, our GP vet warned me about taking him to the University ER. He was concerned it was not a blockage; he suggested just seeing a radiologist. He warned me the ER will poke, prod, hurt him and will still not be able to tell you what is wrong. He was right. What I learned from this is that whether GP or ER vets, they have a rule of thumb: if there is no answer, it must be cancer! To avoid lawsuits, maybe?
Younger vets were nice and acted professional but they treat owners like nonentities. When my puppy finally passed, my wife was furious. She said he may be a dog, not a person, but many of his symptoms and bodily discharges were identical to a human with a bacterial infection of the gut. It is also possible that he did have a partial blockage after all, without getting into gross details, as he died, we discovered something that could have been a partial blockage.
What is happening to the quality of veterinary care? 13 years ago, I had a 15 year old dog who should have died. An old farm vet saved her. What he did was not in any textbook. Before he did it he jokingly said I don't know if this will work; if not, don't sue me. She lived nearly another 18 months. This week, a younger vet denied my puppy an unscheduled medication that is typically sent via mail. Why deny a dying dog comfort? Is the only comfort they understand euthanizing the pet?
According to the article, veterinary technicians appear to be wary of AI. However, even a basic AI program would have reviewed our dog's entire medical history in minutes and informed the vet that Entyce was safe to administer. Maybe that is why they really fear AI.
Sorry, I had to vent. Nobody listened to us, not at the first "hospital" or either ER. I have no doubt he was sedated and administered an IV because the Vet never even listened to me tell him no sedation or IV. If this had been my child, I would have already had a team of lawyers on this. But it is a dog, and any lawsuit would fail. Could it have been cancer, sure, but it just as easily could have been bacterial or a toxin.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of getting pet insurance. This last year, it cost us a significant amount, but the majority of our expenses were reimbursed.
Cat medicine is even worse. I had several vets tell me that we know virtually NOTHING about cat physiology compared to dogs. I don’t know if cats are just that mysterious or if a lot more time and energy has been given to understanding dogs. Cats seem to be the ignored stepchild.
I am sorry to hear your experience.
Mine has been the opposite. I “followed” my older vet to a shared practice. Most of the time I got “my” vet, but I would get one of the others from time to time. They were all fantastic.
One even ran a diagnostic based on something she had recently read about. It wasn’t expensive so it wasn’t a cash grab. It pointed to a vitamin deficiency that we were able to correct with a couple $30 shots and some over the counter pills. Our 13 year old German Shepard was acting like a 3 year old in a few days.
When we finally had to put her down this January, we had three of the docs in the room weeping with us.
Nope…I am never changing offices.
Went through similar with my ptsd dog who had osteosarcoma.
On top of the house fire, the only car I could get him to his chemo treatments in Gaithersburg being totaled by a drunk foreigner and hubby dropping dead, I wound up watching the cancer spread and one day he up and died in my arms.
The oncology vet COULD have continued his chemo but she insisted he come THERE for his month CBC panels and “ consults” (those were over $300 NOT covered by his insurance ) when the CBCs could have easily been done locally.
Money.
It’s the money.
Trupanion blew almost $80k on my boy, happily but she wanted all of it going to her.
So he died.
Cha ching. Cha ching. Cha ching. "You want fries with that?"
A friend took her cat to the e vet to repair an injury and they under anesthetized the cat.
It woke up during the surgery l, understably freaked out, thrashed about and bit the vet tech.
Because she didn’t have his rabies tag or papers with her in that middle of the night emergency they forced her to let them kill her cat, cut off its head and sent it out for testing.
I don’t think she’ll ever get over that horror.
Don’t get me started on vets and cats. We lost our Lilly last week. She had a very nonchalant demeanor, didn’t check things we knew should be looked at, and then the kitty had to be euthanized.
There’s a lot of detail, but it’s too sad to get into now.
We have regrets that we didn’t take her to animal emergency.
Sorry for your loss. We had a problem-child mare. What could go wrong went wrong. Our local big animal vet was really good but didn’t have facilities to treat her so she sent us to another that did. By 5PM, she called us to take her to WSU Vet school in Pullman. After that we would only take her there. One time she was admitted for 4 months at no charge as the Board deemed her situation as rare and used her case for training.
She’s still going strong but we finally sold her to a good home that has access to great vets in their area.
I wanted to get a bumper sticker made that said “My money and my horses go to WSU”.
Juliet loved it ovr there because the young vet student gals with bathe and groom her every day. It was like a spa.
What a horrible ordeal for your dog and your family. I can’t imagine such vet incompetence. Literally brings tears to my eyes.
I’ve always had pets. A Keeshond from Animal Control and two shelter cats when I lived on a fenced-in acre. Fed the the best food, even cooked for the dog every day. I adopted them within a month, and they aged well, rarely needed to see their vets. Because they didn’t see other animals, I didn’t even vax them. They lived many years and when the last one died, I just couln’t stand living there any more without them. Moved.
Have only had cats since then. Had one seriously incompetent vet for first cat, Andy, who let him fall off exam table and laughted about it and let him sit in a cage with a room full of barking dogs before they did a 10-second urinalysis. Andy died far too young because I didn’t know Easter Lilies were poisonous to cats. Present kitty, Daisy, is a seriously bitchy kitty. (We have the same birthday.) No way I can get her into her very nice crate so found a vet who comes to the house.
Being a vet doesn’t pay well. And loving all creatures, great and small isn’t enough to make up for it.
How old was the dog when it died?
I don’t have pet insurance for my dog. My brother has pet insurance on his year and a half old German Shepherd, right now he is regretting it. The dog had a few minor maladies and when he tries to use the insurance they hem and haw, and say they don’t pay for this or that.
I was taking mine to the same vet from the beginning. Two years ago I noticed he was lethargic, stopped eating, drank a lot of water, was throwing up and pooping soft stool, then yellow liquid. Feeling it was an emergency, I called my vet on a Thursday, they told me sorry, but couldn’t fit him in until Tuesday. I told them I felt it was an emergency and they still said they couldn’t see him. I found an emergency care vet nearby, they said bring him in immediately. They looked at him and right away they suspected he had pancreatitis, and he was diabetic. They kept him three days and put a line in him and pumped him full of fluids and got him up on his feet again, they were right in their suspecting diabetes and pancreatitis. Now I give him two insulin shots a day, but he is still here.
I was pissed with how my old vet treated me as a customer and my dog as a patient. His whole life my dog had chronic ear & eye infections, allergy problems, and this vet would see him several times a year for that, and for various treatments, pills, salves, blood work, shots, check ups ect. but they couldn’t see him when time was important. I understand something like this developed over my dogs lifetime, and I take most of the blame for giving him too much people food along with his dry dog food, which probably caused this, but I feel they maybe they should have caught that something wasn’t right with his bloodwork years before it manifested itself.
I did some snooping on the interwebs looking at reviews for this vet, and they were horrible, with most of the disgruntled customers having similar stories as mine, but with worse endings, many of them called this place nothing but pill pushers. I lived and learned not to blindly trust a veterinarian, which I did mine for many years. The new emergency pet clinic is great with my dog, very proactive, wish I knew about them sooner.
The problem is..animals often don’t show symptoms of illness until it is often too late. We lost an Aussie Shepherd due to a sudden seizure...she was fine in the morning, dead by the afternoon.
This is a very very sad story much like my own experience with much loved calico cat but im not going to get into it here.
I feel you, I really do.
One thing I have discovered is :
DO NOT GIVE YOUR PETS TAP WATER
OR WATERN FROM A CISTERN , WELL, ETC.
boil the water and you will thank yourself
I’ve been going to my vet for over 20 years. They are great. When our beloved Beagle Buddy died they sealed him up in a coffin for us so we could take him home to bury him. No charge.
You make no mention of a post mortem. Why wasn’t one performed to confirm? Gut bacteria could have been tested too.
Sorry to hear your story, but I am living thru it right now. It is conforting to hear how much you have went thru... makes me feel I’ve slighted my pal.
It is a Good Gig If You Can Get It. I’ll get back to this at the end...
This is how many end up in the Vet practice, which is the new wave in the field are there because they followed their hearts and did what they loved, right? It is not that simple really. Many start with the best of intensions but these young people have been failed by society - everything you said points to to people who see every dog or cat as just another block of time and they are in rote routine.
I am afraid the quality of our school system in general has had a terrible effect. The descriptions of how new vets, the youthful ones operate in front of you, shows they have little intellectual curiosity, and that they really don’t gain in the way of knowlege because they are just punching a clock. Are they doing what they thought they loved, or are they just putting in time for money. It shows that they have no connection to either knowledge or treatment. These new wave vets at a place like Banfield Pet Hospitals operate or approach work like a team at the NYT getting an article out by deadline with four authors on the article. Banfield also showed me a Chinese Fire Drill - with everyone saying ask him or her or they are not here today. WTF?
I recently had an appointment in late November and when I got there some doctor who was a non-employee substutite for the day came and said they were getting the medication to put my dog to sleep - out of left field with no warning they said to me and nothing like this had ever been said - then they billed me $550 for an appointment when I had insurance paid up for the year... My son and I took our old dog home and started giving him IVs and he is still with us. He has tumor around his chest/stomach area and coughing, and I know he is suffering. But we think our dog still wants to be here, that he shows happiness and a desire to be with us, and that while he must be suffering he is not miserable - except the coughing. I know I should be prepared to put him down. I’m waiting for my son at the end June to come home, and if it is the time, then we will all be there. Now I get zero sleep. This dog is a pest, he can do anything but he will sit on the bed and demand I put him on the floor, or come to the bed and snivel to be picked up - yea he is weak so there’s that, but he deserves the pick ups... he still chases the rabbits and has given up on squirrels. I have him on pain meds and some other capsule for an adrenaline condition. Did I mention no sleep - that was last night and the night before - so my dog is my constant companion ever the needy loyal love monster.
I am not saying these new vets don’t care, but they lack the overall upbringing early in life to overcome the odds stacked against them because of the DNC rotten influence on their world outlook - they have all been lied to and they are literally lost for the most part. Again the Schools have done the opposite of preparing our youth for life and supporting themselves.
Remeber the first line - about the gig... its a good gig if you can get it. This is what the old priest said to me in 1983 in South Korea, about the state of the Christianity in the Republic of the South... I was volunteering about once a month to take some of my military shopping rations out for the kids from my own pocket. They told me things about why people go into the Priesthood, and it was all about screwing women and making money. All these years later, I have become something of a local oracle when it comes to identifying Korean Pastors who are just corrupt snake oil salesmen. I can spot the con men shaking down the congeration and have never wrongly accused one yet - funny thing is everybody sees something off but too nice to call it out. -— I used to take calls from some of the local car lots to come in and find the bad sales people for management - its an art form identifying a class of people.
The whole problem with today’s vets are mostly people who are just doing a gig - its the paycheck they are currently getting. Same with the one’s that cut dog hair for a year and quit.
Nobody is committed to anything. The good ones are few and far inbetween. My good vet left and told me he was quitting because of the people around him who don’t care. I get that.
“Being a vet doesn’t pay well.”
Well someone is making a helluva lot of money based on the thosands I’ve paid (and all for naught). Thank god I had good insurance.
My dear granddaughter, the one we call the “animal whisperer”, took a job at a veterinary clinic. She dutifly drove there 5 days a week to do helpful chores for the practice.
Long story short, she was quite appalled at the indifference shown to the animals. It was all about the numbers, the money. I asked your why she didn’t go on there the following summer, and she stated “The place is totally corporate”, and ruined any thought she had about going into veterinary medicine.
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