Message Number: SG3560 | New FHL Archives Search
From: grape_apes@hotmail.com
Date: 2003-03-10 18:05:51 UTC
Subject: RE: Massachusetts Adrenal Surgery warning!!!!!!
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <3254885.1047321740348.JavaMail.nobody@strontium>

I'm a tech in MA, and I can assure you that at our practice, we do not do
the surgeries. We do do the dental cleanings and some extractions,
though those are generally only done by our techs who have been techs
for five to nine years, and are still usually doctor-supervised or done by
the doctor if they are tough extractions. Occasionally our head tech will
do a cat neuter, but those are not sterile surgeries or complex like a
rabbit neuter, and even those are not done without owner permission-it
is very rare indeed that it happens at all.

We certainly would never be perfomring an adrenalectomy. That's why
vets go to vet school (not that there's much going on in the wya of
teaching ferret surgery at most of them, but at least they have studied
and oracticed other surgeries). Perhaps this tech was aloowed to do
this because it was her own pet versus a client's, though even then, I am
kind of surprised. I would certainly hope that that office does not do this
to unwitting clients' pets!

It's certainyl worth expressing such concerns to any vet you go to and
getting assurances that this doesn't happen at their practice.

-April AC

Author wrote:
> you're a vet?" She replied "No, I'm a technician. But the vet did check
> my work to make sure I removed the entire gland.".
> I know that we all need to learn through practice, but I will make damn
> sure that from now own that I know that it is a vet operating on my
> babies! This causes me a little concern about who is actually doing
> surgeries. I'm not trying to offend anyone out there who may be in this
> tech's position, however if this is a common practice I think that the pet
> owners should know in advance and be given the option of
authorizing the
> tech to work on your pet or not.