venting about vets and question

I go to the vet a lot (as in at least several time a month usually more) because i have several older special needs cats. I have gone to every vet clinic in town where I live. I am at one of the best this area has to offer. however, i am not happy at all with the vet care i am getting here. i don't think there is anything practically i can do due to location and being wiped out finanacially by them. but it is also taking a big psychological toll on me. i am so angy at them at times for things like overcharging, not caring, unbelievalbe incompetence, lack of any oversight into what they are doing, that it is making me sick. if it wasn't for being able to get info off the internet, several of my cats would be dead by now. my cats are my family members and it effects me deeply when they get shoddy treatment.

anyway, my question is, is there a site or place i can go to vent to other like minded people? i didn't want to do it here (although i guess i just did) because i know that this is more set up for pet health stuff which is great. i know i am not the only one who is incredibly frustrated in this department. i've talked to a couple of people in the past online and also where i work who have similar feelings. so, i was thinking that there might be a place to go online for people to discuss their frustrations. if there is not there should be. i think the kind of things that some people have to go through who must go the vet frequently like me can be really damaging to them pyschologically and it could help to have somewhere to talk about it. not just a little damaging but very damaging. i have felt many times after having a very bad experience at the vet clinci that i have been pschologically traumatized. i wish there was somewhere i could go to talk to people who would understand what i am going through on this. if i didn't have to go in so much, i don't think it would be as bad.

i would love to report some of the things that hey have done to my cats that were wrong and unethical but i can't because i have to keep going back there. is there a place online that you can anonymously report bad or unethical vet care?

i don't mean to offend anyone with this, i am sure there are good veterinarians out there. but i haven't had many good experiences. there are online gruops for practically every cat ailment there is. maybe there should be one for this if there is not already. i'd be willing to start a yahoogroup about this if anyone is interested. it woudlnt' just be griping, there could be brainstorming about how to get more oversight introduced into the vet profession, talking about ways to get help financially, finding/figuring out a way to report bad (as well as good) vet experiences anonymously. i don't know, it's just a thought.

 

of course there always is. But if they are seen by people who matter, that is the issue.

I googled rate your vet and found many different sites. I've rated my vet on this one before, and he now has 11 perfect ratings.

http://www.vetratingz.com/index.jsp

you could write a letter to your state board. you could even write a letter to the owner of the clinic who may or may not be aware of what is going on. and who may or may not care.

I'm sorry you don't have an acceptable alternative vet in the area. I have to travel almost an hour to get to mine, because I worked for one who was closer to me and I wouldn't let him touch my animals with a ten foot pole at this point, and have seen and heard stories from other clinics and so there for I travel.

Connie

 

Connie,

thanks for your reply. i checked out the link you gave. my vet clinic had not been rated., but your right about who will even see that stuff. the owner of my clinic are the vets that work there, the ones that i go to. they are the problem. they are unbelievable arrogant and close minded. i've brought them a lot of info (verbally usually) from stuff i've learned here about feline diabetes and other drugs and things and they are completely unwilling to accept any of it. i've tried to talk to them about dosing lantus because my diabetic was on that for awhile (they think it's a once a day insulin) and so many other things. most of them don't know what lantus is. they don't know that lantus and glargine are the same thing. i brought in that one really excellent article on lantus (don't have it in front of me now) the once based on the german study with all the references and stuff... i gave it to my vet and never heard from him about it again. i bet he is still telling people to give lantus once a day even though he had all the info to learn how it is used in cats. this is just one tiny example. they just aren't up on current vet stuff and for some reason don't want to be even if someone hands them the info. i;ve been nice to them to, very careful around their egos. it doesn't matter.

i tried to talk to them about budesonide and they said it is not legal to use in the us. not fda approved for cats. and yet, even if that is true they use other things regularly that are not fda approved for cats. they just didn't like that i brought in the info about it. it's like a powerstuggle or something with them all the time. i told them that budesonide was regularly used by other clinics and stuff (info i got off internet) and they were just not willing to do it. my cat went back on a normal steroid and pred and dieabetes came back. now gone again but didn't even have chance to use soething that might have been better for her.

these things aren't the worst things, just a couple of frustrating examples.

i could write the state board but i wonder if they would do anything. that's good idea.

i was thinking about trying to get together a citizens action committe or something like that where it would be made of local pet owners who could take reports of good and bad behaviorand then write reports to the local newspapers or something about what was going on but i guess that is unrealistic because everyone on the committee would be afraid of retaliation.

another idea i had which also prob completely unrealistic is to have community meetings with peopl e hwo are interested in pet health like me and every on this site but i mean local people would meet in a room with veterinarians and discuss pet health issues. like one month it could be diabetes and so when someone brought up lantus and the vets siad ot use it once a day or whatever, a citizen could say, well, i've been doing some research and i've heard that it could also be used twice a day too ( in a nice way or whatever) and bring like copies of articles for everyone. they couldn't dismiss it that easiely then. and the other way too, the vets could educate people. just a back and forth discussion so that it woudln't be such a closed system. does anyone out there have community meetings like this with their vets? or like monthly seminars on a particular pet illness that is open to the community?

i feel like there needs to be some kind of oversight outside of the vet community itself. they don't answser to anyone.

that's good that you can drive an hour for a good vet. i don't really have that option.

thanks for replying.

 

You can try getting the state board to do something. The following is action taken (I just picked on randomly) against one vet in Virginia. In Virginia the decisions are available on-line.

http://www.dhp.virginia.gov/Notices/Vet ... 032010.pdf

 

Look down the right hand column of Stefani's BadVetDaily blog.

There are links under a section she calls "Can You Stomach Any More of This Stuff? If so, you may want to visit . ."

One item on her list is Vet Peeves.

 

thanks for the links and advice. i probably shouldn't have posted that but i was just feeling very frustrated.