Partners for Healthy Pets Newsletter

Editor's note: SAVMA has recently become an associate member of the Partnership for Preventive Pet Healthcare.  Please read on for their latest newsletter!

Build the importance of preventive healthcare with Partners for Healthy Pets power tools 

People have a special relationship with their pets, and most recognize that visiting a veterinarian enhances that relationship. But you see it every day in practice – pet owners who have been bombarded with incorrect and incomplete information and are confused about what’s best for their pets. So much so that they may not follow your clinical advice, and may not bring their pets to critical preventive care appointments at all. 

 

 

As a profession, we have a great opportunity help pets and pet owners enjoy a longer and healthier life together

 Veterinary professionals work hard to provide the best possible care to pets so that they and their owners can enjoy long and healthy lives together. Partners for Healthy Pets was founded to help you make the preventive healthcare you provide even more powerful. We’ve developed tools and resources – available at no charge - that can help you build better relationships with owners and help them understand the value of preventive healthcare so that more patients can benefit from what you do best. 

 

 

Individual practice involvement is key

The Partners for Healthy Pets Practice Resources Toolbox was conceived to provide the profession with a sound mix of information and materials that collectively elevate the level of preventive care offered across the country.  Each of the tools and resources provide dynamic ways to reinforce a practice-wide focus on preventive pet healthcare.  Used collectively, they can help healthcare teams enhance communications with pet owners about the value of and need for routine care and take preventive pet healthcare to an optimum level within your own individual practice.

 

 

Make the decision to be a voice for vitality...of the veterinary profession, of your practice, and of our nation’s pets!

It’s easier than you might think

• Adopt and widely communicate Preventive Healthcare Guidelines to pet owners through your newsletters, website, and within each preventive care visit.

• Focus on communicating the value and benefit of preventive pet healthcare to pet owners at all points of contact, from receptionist to technician to veterinarian. 

• Use the tools and resources available from Partners for Healthy Pets to help find communication gaps, train staff, and gather new ideas that will compliment current programs and plans.

 

 

Partners for Healthy Pets is dedicated to ensuring that pets received the preventive healthcare they deserve through regular visits to a veterinarian and is committed to working with you to enhance the health of your patients and your practice. Learn more about Partners for Healthy Pets and explore the Resources Toolbox at www.partnersforhealthypets.org.

App Review: The Merck Veterinary Manual

The Merck Veterinary Manual, 10th edition app (iTunes page here)
Cost: $49.99

This is the Merck Veterinary Manual you’ve come to know and love but now in a mobile form.  It is the 10th edition, and is available for both your iPhone and optimized for iPad. The mobile Manual is divided into both “Outline” form (organized by body system), and “Topics” which includes everything from aardvark nutrition to zygomycosis. There is also a search function and favorites list where you can bookmark the sections you reference the most.

 

The different navigation methods make it pretty easy to find what you are looking for. There are pictures, audio, and video included, with over 1,100 color photos.  References sections are linked within each article so you can quickly jump around to the pertinent information you need.

I’ve been using this app on my small animal internal medicine and emergency/critical care rotations and so far it has proven a handy resource to help read up on my cases, since it has a little bit on just about everything.  I especially like the table formats used for everything from pharmaceuticals to poisonous plants, because concise, quick information is important to me.  I’ve been using it in conjunction with a differentials resource like Saunders “Small Animal Medical Differential Diagnosis” to prepare for cases. 

 

If you are interested in checking out what the Manual has to offer before purchasing this app, check out the free online  9th edition here .  The 10th edition lists updated content and 10 new chapters as an advancement upon the previous edition. 

Straight from Merck, here is what you are getting:

• 1,100+ full-color images for enhanced understanding

• Audio and video examples

• Extensive use of tables and charts

• Cross-reference links to related topics

• Diagnosis and treatment of domestic, exotic, and laboratory animals

• Universal Index Search – find topics across all indexes

• ‘Favorites’ for bookmarking important entries

• Optimized iPad interface

The app has a slightly more user friendly navigation and search options than the online version in my opinion, and the “Favorites” feature is nice to tag pages you want to look at later.  Overall, as a student reviewing for the NAVLE and navigating clinical rotations, I think this app is a handy one to have!

 

 

Hedgehog on the Loose

Entry, Creative Corner
Regina Shores, Virginia-Maryland

 

Parking and…Penguins?

Entry, Foot in Mouth Disease

Jason Collins, Mississippi State '13

A classmate of mine shared with me a metaphor that someone else told her; information that we learn while in vet school is like a penguin. Our brain is like an iceberg that can only hold so many penguins. As we switch between departments in clinics and are called upon to recall bits of information we learned 2, 3, or 6 months prior in unrelated departments, we realize that our iceberg has become overcrowded and we’ve “lost” some penguins. I remember knowing that information 6 weeks ago for a test but now I am loaded down with a ton of new information for the upcoming test! 

I usually feel like my capacity for memory is smaller than that of my classmates. I am not the only one, however, that has had to park their car in the same space every day for months out of fear of not remembering where they parked at the end of the day. This was particularly the case in the classroom phase of our curriculum, when I went to the same region of the building day in and day out. In clinics, however, when I arrive/leave and where I need to be changes pretty frequently, so I no longer felt the need to park in a specific space. I did, however, continue the practice of parking in the same lot.  

At the end of a recent busy day in clinics, I exited the building and, to my surprise, learned that it was raining.  It was not a downpour, but it was a steady blanket of rain. I walked quickly toward the parking lot where I anticipated my car being parked (1) and as soon as I reached the edge of the parking lot, without so much as looking up, I turned around and walked as quickly as possible back into the building. I had just remembered something important; I had parked my car on the other side of the complex that morning! A classmate of mine told me that I could park closer to the building if I parked on the opposite side from where my usual spot was, because most of the underclassmen were not back from Christmas break yet. I was only partially soaked when I re-entered the building and I proceeded to exit the building on the opposite side and walked very briskly to the location where I had parked my car that morning (2.) I could picture the exact parking space my car occupied. Unfortunately, when I arrived there, another car was in its place! My car was nowhere to be seen. Immediately I recalled that I had had a long lunch break that day and I had driven to my house for something. When I returned to the school, out of habit, I parked in my usual spot on the other side of the building! As I jogged back toward the building, I angrily thought about how completely drenched I was and I hoped no one noticed my pointless journey into that parking lot. Now that it did not matter how long I spent searching for my car in the rain, because I was soaked through anyway, I immediately spotted my car upon exiting the building on the other side (3. )

To this day, I blame this on the penguins for abandoning ship in my time of need. I also blame vet school for giving me so many dang penguins! 

When Nobody is Looking

Entry, Creative Corner
Regina Shores, Virginia-Maryland