[Dailydrool] PUVTH - Onco

[Laura Tancredi]

Hi Susan 
I remember when Rosie first started at Purdue's Onco section and I thought that you guys really liked it.  As I had told you before, I went to Purdue for my clinical year.  I didn't take an onco rotation but they were by far my favorite section in the small animal hospital.  I have of course only been on the "other side of the desk" as usual (i.e., not a client) and I don't know exactly how the onco section runs their appointments.  I know that customer service is important to the hospital but being a teaching hospital it is not like  a regular hospital.  I didn't like that people had to wait for long periods of time and such but I understood that the best for the animals was being done and sometimes customer service suffers.  I'm surprised that being in the clinical study didn't decrease cost as all the clinical studies that occurred when I was there were paid at less in part.  

As far as mixing up chemo meds that is not good and basically the last thing I would expect from that section.  Of course people are people and make mistakes but I doubt that no one got in trouble for that.  I'm sure in fact that someone got in HUGE trouble for that.  If it was an employee they were written up and if they were intern, resident, or student their evaluation and perhaps even passing the section were based on that.  I know this personally (and shamefully).  After being on rotation for 4 weeks with no days off and getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night, I miscalculated a fluids dose for a cat.  It was only slightly off but I was screamed at for it.  

Ok so this is getting long but if I were you I would call Dr Mike Childress.  First of all he is a super nice person and an incredibly intelligent doctor.  And secondly a senior clinician.  I don't know if he is the senior clinician on Rosie's case at this time or not but I don't think it will matter.  But if he isn't on clinics right now then talk to whoever is senior clinician at that time.  

The one thing I didn't like about clinics was when people didn't want to see the vet students.  Rosie's presence is an opportunity for the up and coming veterinarians to learn more and help many more dogs in the future.  When I was there rotations were five weeks and now they are three weeks.  So every 3 weeks a new group of students are coming in on the rotation.
  
I emailed Dr Sarah McMillan (onco resident at Purdue) who I went to Purdue with to see if there is another non-school onco specialist that would be a good fit for you to switch to if you are interested.  I thought Dr Arnold was into alternative medicine but I only saw her when she was an intern in small animal surgery and didn't get to talk about it too much.  

Good luck and I hope that Rosie is doing well :) 

Laura
Flash and Ryu