A Night at the Creek

Many years ago when I began my career I was in a rural area and spent many a night on emergency calls. Typically when an owner called, I would meet them at the hospital to see their pet. Early one evening I received a call from a client who had a great heart and always went the extra mile for her critters. She lived way out in a remote area and had discovered a dog that was hit by a car and fell down an embankment into a stream. They had a number of neighbors out there but the dog was very aggressive and they couldn’t get him out. After several minutes of directions I left my home with a stop at the hospital for some supplies before joining them.

It was dusk by the time I found them. The poor dog had been hit and fell down a steep slope into a stream. The stream was shallow and he sat in the water snapping and growling at anyone brave enough to approach. I knew he had to be hurt pretty badly to be in that position and hoped to get some pain medication into him as quickly as possible. The banks of the stream were also steep and dropped the final 3 feet into relatively calm water. I was glad it was a warm evening because it soon became apparent that I was going to join him in the water. I approached him slowly and was able to gain a little trust but he wasn’t about to let me handle him. It was dark now and as the folks on the bank held flashlights on him I was able to slip a muzzle on him. I calmed and reassured him and gave him an injection of morphine as we sat in the water.

He relaxed and I was able to hand him up the steep bank to the waiting arms of the folks who found him. They set him down and I started doing a cursory exam under the dim light they provided. As I worked I could hear a faint buzzing sound. When I asked, nobody else heard it and they looked at me like I had spent a little too much time in the water. I kept hearing it and finally moved the little fellow over only to find that they had laid him on a bumble bee nest. He wasn’t stung but we all moved pretty quickly after that.

I put a temporary splint on a broken leg and with everyone helping we managed to get him up to my car. We went down to the hospital and started him on his long road to recovery. He turned out to be a great dog and I never saw him try to bite again. It is the only time I ever started an exam in water and I am happy to report that we both survived the evening just fine.

AAHA Accreditation

We are an AAHA accredited hospital. AAHA is the American Animal Hospital Association. Why is accreditation important?

Everything I have done in my life has moved forward by comparing my personal and professional performance to benchmarks and standards. If you don’t measure yourself against something great, you will never push yourself enough. It starts when we are in school and get constant feedback on our progress. As we move away from school it is a time when this feedback comes less frequently. When I became a long distance runner my first benchmark was finishing a marathon. I accomplished this and moved on to more pertinent benchmarks. Qualifying for the Boston Marathon came next. After qualifying for and running Boston I had to search for something else to push me. I looked to people who run further in more beautiful and challenging places. This allowed me to become an avid trail runner and ultra-marathoner.

So, what pushes us as an animal hospital? AAHA is the only organization in North America that accredits animal hospitals. This accreditation is based on roughly 900 standards. These standards cover a variety of areas that affect the client, the pet and our staff. Let’s face it; we all think we do a good job. The question is how good are we? We find this out by inviting AAHA in every three years to do a thorough evaluation of our hospital and how we meet their standards. This is a process that allows us to undergo constant improvement. Roughly 14% of the animal hospitals in North America accept and meet this challenge. The nice thing is that these hospitals become an extended family which is AAHA. These hospitals share best practices and all learn from each other. As the standards are enhanced by leading experts in each area, we push ourselves further.

The rewarding part of AAHA accreditation for me is what it does for our entire staff. It gives them a sense of direction but more importantly, a sense of how good we are at what we do.

My First Job in Veterinary Medicine

By the time I had my first job in this wonderful profession I already knew it would be my life’s work. I began working as a kennel attendant at a hospital in upstate New York. I couldn’t believe that I finally had a foot in the door. It also made me realize how little I knew but that was only a challenge, not a disappointment. Some of my current behaviors with animals are very natural now but as I reflect, many were learned at The Aqueduct Animal Hospital. The occasional bite or scratch is your badge of courage in veterinary medicine. I endured my share. Most of course were preventable with a bit of common sense and training. Sadly, as I started out I had precious little of either.

If my parents were alive today they would recall a list of many doctor visits during the early part of my tenure at Aqueduct. I think one of the most unusual came at the expense of my eagerness to please the owner and again a total lack of common sense. I was paid to clean and Dr. Rapp was pretty darn picky when it came to the cleanliness of his hospital. We often joked that he would step over a three foot pile of garbage to point out a spot on the wall. I didn’t mind the cleaning but was eager to assist with a patient whenever he would ask. I was told by other staff members that the best way to get the chance was to come running if you ever heard him call. I took this quite literally. One afternoon I heard a call on the intercom for an assistant to surgery prep. I took off like a rocket. As I ran around the corner I had the misfortune of running into a technician. To make matters worse, she was carrying a handful of used syringes with their needles out. Most people will never experience this and I can not possibly do justice to the pain of having seven needles inserted into the palm of your hand. After the pain subsided I am not sure which was worse, my embarrassment or the horror of the technician holding the syringes. I can say for sure that the doctor who treated me had a first that day.

During the afternoons at that time, Dr. Rapp would schedule a series of short patient visits to draw blood for heartworm testing. This meant having an assistant with him for a couple of hours to hold the dogs while he drew the blood. I always wanted to do this. It would be good experience but mostly it would allow me to wear a white coat for the first time. I finally got my chance. Dr. Rapp asked me to go get a white coat and bring the first patient into the exam room. I called a young lady in with a huge white German Shepherd. I was pretty sure she thought I was a doctor due to the white coat. When she asked what I was going to do when I got out of high school it was a bit deflating. Dr. Rapp came in and prepared to draw the blood. I took hold of our patient and he had another vision for the afternoon. My training that day would have benefited me more for a rodeo career than becoming a veterinarian. In my strain to please Dr. Rapp, the back of my coat ripped out and I was covered in sweat by the time we had seen one patient. He asked me to send someone else up with a jacket that fit and I returned to cleaning spots on walls. If you see me today, you will notice the lack of a white coat. I just can’t handle the memory.

A Hamster Story

I had a very sad event in my hospital when I was practicing in Northern California in the early 1980’s. A young girl and her mother brought in a hamster. She wanted to have the nails trimmed. As I carried the hamster back to the treatment area to have a technician do the nails the hamster suddenly passed away. She was old and I am sure it was just her time but had no doubt that the trip to the hospital was too much for her. I was devastated and needed to break the news to the little girl. The daughter was still in the exam room and the mother had moved up to the front of the hospital. I told the mother and she asked if I would mind speaking to her daughter without her present. I explained the situation to her twelve year old daughter. She was distraught which was not surprising because I was as well. I felt I had little to offer her other than very heart felt sympathy.

The hospital closed for ninety minutes later that day before evening hours. It was winter so darkness was setting in. I was so upset over the loss of the hamster that I went to a local store and bought a hamster for the little girl. I had the parent’s address and spent the next bit of time trying to find their house. I had to knock on a few doors to get directions and apparently a grown man with a cardboard hamster carrier doesn’t inspire trust. The first couple of people just said they weren’t interested through the door and I moved on. By the time I found where the house was it was too late and I had to get back to see my appointments. As I drove up to a full parking lot, I realized my new hamster had escaped in my car. There in full view of my next two hours of appointments I chased a screaming hamster around my beat up car. I can only imagine what the people were thinking. I finally secured her and moved her to safer housing until I was through for the evening.

I returned to the little girl’s house and presented her the new hamster with her parent’s permission. They were thrilled and I felt a sense of relief that their daughter’s sadness was lessened.

The next day a staff member came and told me the mother was on the phone. I took the call thinking she was going to thank me again. To my surprise she informed me that the hamster had several babies that night! Once we figured out what we were going to do with the babies we both had a good laugh over the situation. The hamster family became a nice show and tell piece for her daughter.