Polite Paradise

I didn't know where to put this or quite what title to give the thread, so here goes.

This didn't happen to me, it happened to my friend.

A little B/G:

Her cat has ear cancer and has had parts of the ear removed by her (now former) vet over the years.  This vet has been practicing for 30 years and she had a pretty good reputation.  My friend's been taking her pets to her for about 10 years. I used her twice in the past when I had emergency situations and couldn't reach my own vet after hours and I recommended her to another friend when they had an emergency. There wasn't a problem then, but I did start hearing things about her over the past few years, rumors of her being quick to recommend euthanasia or giving a really wrong diagnosis.  I know being a vet is a stressful job and perhaps she is suffering the strain after being practicing for so many years.

My friend started to have doubts about the vet, I want to say, about 2 years ago. Her mother also goes to this vet and was going to be relocating to another country in a couple months. One of her cats had an injured paw. She was trying to get their travel documents in order and "fit to fly"certificate. So the vet said that there was something seriously wrong with the paw and that the whole leg would have to be amputated and the cat wouldn't be healed in time for the travel date and it would just be best if she put the cat to sleep. Her mother was appalled and ended up taking the cat for a second opinion and it was something very minor wrong with the paw.

Around this time last year, my friend was in the process of moving and the cat with ear cancer ran away. She looked all over the place for the missing cat and asked her neighbors to keep an eye out. His ear was in need of cancer treatment again.

It turns out a family took him in and happened to bring him to this vet. They told her they found him and they thought he was abandoned. The vet did the ear surgery on him. So word eventually got back to my neighbor that somebody in the area had taken her cat in and she got in contact with them. She went to pick him up and they told her what vet they took him to and they paid to have his ear treated. My friend offered to reimburse them for their costs, but they didn't accept it.  They did nothing wrong, they were being good samaritans.

So she called the vet and asked her about it. Not only did the vet not scan for a chip to make sure, she actually recognized my friend's cat as belonging to her  because she had seen him many times over the years. My friend was rather upset that she didn't at least call and confirm first, considering she said she thought it was her cat. And she didn't even verify it by scanning for chip. My friend would have had her missing cat back much sooner too.

After hearing the rumors, the experiences she and her mother had, she decided to try a new vet. The cat's ear cancer needed treatment again and there's not much left of his ears now, so I recommended my vet and she brought him there. They ran full tests and said that they could remove the whole ear, including the inner ear, rather than just snip off the bad part some more until it came back again a year later.  My friend wondered why her former vet hadn't suggested this before either. My vet did the operation 2 days ago and he said the entire tumor was removed and hopefully he will now cancer free. He's got a long road ahead of healing, but I am so happy that the procedure went well.

Anyway, how out of order was the former vet for pretty much knowing she was performing a service on her own client's cat and not bothering to call and ask or even scan for a chip to be 100% sure?  Any vet I've ever gone to, the first thing they ever do when I've said that it's a stray cat I've picked up is scan for a chip.

I think the vet acted unethically and I would 1) find another vet 2) report her to the vet board.

If you think your friend won't report the vet, maybe someone else should. Can you ask at your rescue groups if anyone has a solid complaint they can put forward? I mean I'm sure no one looks forward to reporting someone who's been helpful in the past, but... come on, suggesting right away that an animal should be euthanized? That is not a suggestion that a professional should ever put forward lightly, because you can't reverse it! And, in the case of the ear tumor, since it was an ongoing treatment, the vet had many opportunities to research the problem and present a better solution (like, she wasn't just caught off-guard on one occasion). She clearly just didn't care all that much, and that's a huge problem when you're providing medical treatment to any living being.

Like if there was a way to suggest to the vet that it's time to retire without an official professional reprimand, I would say to go that route, but I don't know how that would happen. I'm assuming your friend doesn't want to have that conversation with the vet "as a friend." I think it's pretty telling when your own friend won't use your professional services anymore. Maybe it will come up naturally in conversation between them, if the vet asks why she hasn't seen the cat lately.

It took my friend this long to tell me the whole story. She would elude to things like "I think she's going a bit dippy" or "I think she's going through something" and she would stop herself when I asked why she thought so. She wouldn't go into it more than she thought that she wasn't as good as she used to be and maybe she should retire. So it was only in the past week did I get the whole story with her mother's cat and with what happened with her cat last summer/fall. 

But I had heard similar things from other people over the past couple years, just not a first hand story.  I am going to ask around with some of the animal rescue people I know and see if there's other confirmed stories like this one, not just gossip.

  It would have taken two seconds to scan him or even if for some reason her scanner was broken, all she had to do was message my friend and say "Hey, somebody just brought a stray cat in and he looks like yours . Is he missing?"

And suggesting euthanasia was the only option for the mother's cat when all it was was a minor paw injury.