Vets get jealous too
This one’s for my fellow toilers in this profession.
One of the great things about not owning a practice is that I don’t have to worry about a lot of the things an owner would. Payroll, for example. Sick technicians. FMLA. Leases. That sort of thing.
One of the bummers about not owning a practice makes itself apparent whenever I find myself at a continuing education conference, walking through booths of shiny bright tools and pieces of equipment I can’t buy. The sales rep turns to me with shiny teeth, grinning “HELLOOOO!” before placing some amazing doohickey or another into my hand, only to snatch it away just as quickly when they realize I have no buying power.
I am in love with video otoscopes. It’s like the ipad of the veterinary world. Do you NEED one? No. Do you want one? Desperately.
Ear infections are the yeasty bread and butter of many practices. Dogs and cats, unlike people, have a nice 90 degree angle in their ear canals, and in some cases a nice floppy flap of pinna sitting on top of the opening, making them veritable wonderlands for yeast and bacteria.
I know what a normal ear canal looks like: pink and happy and clean.
I also know what a diseased ear canal looks like: kind of like one of those caves spelunkers flit about, dark and dank and mottled.
I can tell you this, that your dog’s ear looks like a bowl of baked beans, and maybe you will let me do an ear cleaning. Or perhaps you will say, “But I clean them myself,” and decline my offer to do a better job.
All I have is my otoscope and my word. But with video otoscopes- a little device you stick into the ear with a camera at the end- you would find yourself confronted with the incontrovertible evidence of your pet’s state.
IN YOUR FACE! (don’t click if icky ears freak you out.) Yes, that is what we are staring at when we tell you, we really need to get in there and fix those ears up.
Veterinarians in practices with a video otoscope report that client compliance increases by a large margin when they are able to show owners exactly what they are seeing when they look in those ears. I imagine, of you clicked on the link, you can understand why.
Come to mama. That thing of beauty brings a tear to my eye. Do you have ANY IDEA how much easier that would make it to grab foxtails?
Someday, if I work really hard, maybe I too can have one of those so I can show people up close and personal the face of Pseudomonas ulcer ears. A girl can dream. But in the meantime, when I zoom by the websites of those practices offering video otoscopy, a small part of me wants to ask if I can come by, just for an afternoon, and play with their otoscope.
