)&*&#$^&!

I'm frustrated and irritated about my last 24 hours at work. Here's just two of the reasons why.


Situation #1
Pet owner calls and states that their dog just ingested rat bait, a poison that results in bleeding.  We let them know that this is an emergency, and they should come in immediately so we can induce vomiting, give charcoal and likely prescribe the antidote for this type of ingestion, vitamin K.   Seems pretty straight forward, right? A problem that we can fix.  A GREAT prognosis, if we act quickly.

You can read the specifics about the disease here, if you like.  The basic principle is this - rat bait is a POISON that works by making rats bleed to death.  It can do the same thing to dogs and cats, if they eat enough.  After ingestion, prevention of toxicity is by decontamination (as above - removal from the body with vomiting, and charcoal to prevent absorption).  If you do nothing, your pet is at risk for life-threatening bleeding.  Once bleeding occurs, the treatment is plasma, and vitamin K, which carries a significantly higher cost and chance of death than dealing with the problem right away.  ESPECIALLY if you watched them eat it.  WHY would you take the chance?

This particular person did not seem to agree with the above.  The man argued with my staff on the phone, and after several calls and two or three hours later, he finally arrived.  He was rude, insulting, and an all-around jerk with my staff and myself. He reluctantly agreed to let us induce vomiting on his dog, and when we he finally did, unfortunately, no rat bait came up.  He waited too long for successful vomiting.  This person continued to do nothing, except for  insult me, my staff, and complain about our prices. "HIGHWAY ROBBERY!" He screamed, "It's not even an EMERGENCY!" (Yes, sir, it actually is.)  Complaining about prices to me at my ER is like complaining to the checker at the grocery store.  The cashier scanning your items has exactly as much control over the price of bread as I do over the price of the exam, or the cost of inducing vomiting -- that is, ZERO control.  Mr. My-dog-ate-rat-bait-for-the-second-time-and-it's-your fault bitched, moaned, screamed and stomped his feet.  He yelled that his daytime doctor would have charged half of our fees.  I tried to help him understand that keeping the pet ER open is expensive (see a very well written post by Homeless Parrot, here), but it didn't matter.

I really don't like getting yelled at for trying to do the right thing.  It's not my fault you didn't pick up the poison.

Situation #2 -

Client arrives because her very small dog just ingested a whole, very large rib bone.  I performed and exam and discussed options with her; essentially 1)endoscopy to attempt retrieval without surgery 2)try to induce vomiting, with the known risks of this sharp bony item 3) surgical removal, or the least safe option, 4)wait and see what happens.  The bone was very large compared to the 15# dog, and had an extremely high probability of becoming obstructive, or causing damage to the intestines.

Fortunately, her pet was stable.  Unfortunately, we were very busy and the client had to wait about 30 minutes for x-rays as there were several pets to have exams, images taken, or procedures performed before it would be her pet's turn (including a dog that was laterally recumbent and unresponsive, a cat having difficulty breathing, and a dog who couldn't urinate.  All obviously much more emergent and therefore, triaged ahead of her dog, who wasn't yet vomiting or painful).

What did the client choose to do?

She left in a huff.   Now that's really going to help her pet, isn't it?

It's not my fault your dog ate the bone.  I'm just trying to help fix it.  It's not my fault that there are other animals here who are more sick than yours, increasing your wait time.  If your pet was dying, you'd want us to see it first, too.

I'm a people pleaser, a hard worker, and I'm dedicated to fixing pets.  It frustrates me when clients don't believe that we work long shifts and stay up all night to HELP, when they assume that we have bad intentions, when they are unkind, and when they don't let me help their pets.