Better veterinary visits – working towards a patient-friendly practice

Awareness for improving patients’ veterinary experiences is growing. A patient-friendly approach is not only considered better for our patients, but it makes working with them easier and safer for staff, saves time and makes day-to-day work with animals more fulfilling. This article discusses approaches to caring for patients’ behavioural/emotional welfare while attending to their clinical needs, highlighting ways to achieve this. Patients’ emotional welfare could be argued to be the animal’s highest priority, so how can we make this happen alongside providing the best possible clinical care, as part of our aspiration towards an evidence-based approach to veterinary care?     

Owners’ abilities to recognise and comprehend signs or displays of aggression in their canine companions outwith the home environment

Abstract

Due to welfare and safety factors, canine aggression is at the forefront of a vast volume of behavioural assessments. Conditions resulting in behaviour problems normally result from a form of stimuli, including internal (psychological) or external (handling errors). The study’s main aims were establishing owner’s level of awareness when their dog displays aggressive behaviours towards veterinary staff and discovering whether/why owners can be reluctant to disclose information to veterinary staff regarding incidences of frequent aggression in their canines. The results highlighted the importance of owner education with regards to the occurrence of canine aggression in stressful environments.     

Intensive Care of Rodents

The average rodent arriving at your surgery may be in a critical state. In the past, these children's pets often suffered neglect due to ignorance of their needs by owners and some veterinary surgeons. Nowadays, clients expect the same level of care for a rat or hamster as for a cat or dog     

Giving your clients the best end-of-life experience with their pets

Abstract

Animal hospice and end-of-life care are emerging specialities within veterinary medicine which hold considerable potential for development by veterinary nursing professionals. In the first of a two-part series, Dr Susan Gregersen shares what she has learned over the past 10 years of helping more than 6000 pets and families face the challenges of end-of-life care at home. This article explains the importance of focusing on end-of-life care in veterinary practice, and explores the experience of pet euthanasia from an owner’s perspective.     

Care of Patients Undergoing Cataract Removal

Your skill as a veterinary nurse in dealing with difficult clients can make the difference between an animal receiving proper care or going home untreated. Pet owners are notoriously emotional about their pets who offer them company and unconditional love even at their worst moments. Owners may feel extra protective of their pets in a veterinary surgery. Veterinary nurses are in the ‘front line’, and commonly have to deal with aggressive, emotional or irrational clients. Here, Alison Hudd describes various methods for coping with such clients, and explains how veterinary nurses can make a real difference just by taking the time to talk and trying to understand.     

Behavioural first aid for elderly cats and dog

ABSTRACT:

Ageing is part of life and, as veterinary care improves, we can expect to see increasing numbers of elderly pets being presented at veterinary practices. Care of the geriatric pet has become a major part of the veterinary nurse's role, with many practices running nurse-led geriatric clinics. Despite this, owners remain reticent to present the older pet – concerned that any visit to the practice may be the last – leading to many elderly pets living in discomfort and depleted welfare. As in so many cases, behavioural changes can be the first signs of physical problems and the veterinary nurse plays a vital role in identifying the elderly dog that requires support.     

Communicating with your colleagues and your clients – remember the Seven C’s!

ABSTRACT:

Communication is a vital part of patient care and client relationship in today’s veterinary practice. Reviewing communication from the aspects of context, content, complexity, concentration, courtesy, consistency, and compassion, the article suggests ways the veterinary nurse can improve how they talk to their clients in the consult room or other areas of interaction. Improving communication directly affects client compliance, customer experience, and so leads to improved animal welfare.     

Listening to the parent voice to inform person-centred neonatal care

Family integrated care (FIC), where parents are an integral part of their baby's care and decision-making can enhance parental involvement and empowerment, contributing to decreased parental separation and stress. It follows that parents can also be a central part of neonatal education for staff in the neonatal speciality. This paper focuses on what students and staff can learn from parents about what they feel is important to make their experience better. A narrative, interpretive approach was undertaken to collect and analyse parent interview narratives. A specific question was posed to a purposive sample of parents who have had premature babies about what health professionals can learn from them. Thematic analysis revealed five key themes relating to the importance of: communicating; listening; empathising; acknowledging (the parent's role); realising (what matters to parents). These elements were incorporated into a framework named by the mnemonic, ‘CLEAR’. This highlights what parents want staff to be cognisant of when caring for them and their babies. Learning from the parents in our care enables a greater understanding of their experiences at difficult and challenging times. Having a deeper understanding of parents' experiences can contribute to enhanced empathic learning.     

Council News

It's been a busy few months as far as congresses are concerned—in fact, April and May have come to be known as ‘congress season’ in the veterinary world. Hard on the heels of WSAVA/BSAVA/FECAVA congress (see May issue, pp66–67), came the Crieff weekend and ‘Voorjaarsdagen’, the Netherlands' small animal veterinary conference. We have reports from both, courtesy of Jane More, the BVNA's public relations officer. And, on page 105, we look ahead to our own Congress and discover from A. V. Enn about what appears to be an emerging human condition: ‘post-congress syndrome’.     

Surgical nursing – mastectomy

ABSTRACT

Surgical nursing roles include anaesthetist, surgical assistant and circulating nurse. Managing theatre is often the job of the veterinary nurse and successful management of these roles are vital for patient care and good surgical outcome. The nursing management of a dog with mammary tumours admitted for a second mastectomy is discussed. Pre-operative nursing interventions including blood testing, radiographs and intravenous fluid therapy is discussed, as are pre-anaesthetic clipping and the risk of surgical site infection (SSI). SSIs are also discussed in relation to surgical attire and despite a lack of evidence for some items reducing SSIs, they are still recommended to prompt theatre discipline. The nurse’s role as a surgical assistant is discussed and the importance of good technique to ensure tissue vitality and reduced SSIs. Passive drain care is considered alone with the associated risks of ascending infection.     

Say what you see – or don’t: how labelling patients might influence their welfare

Animal welfare is a complex and often emotive subject, but one that many veterinary professionals care deeply about. However, sometimes we ourselves can actually be barriers to optimising patient welfare. This article looks at some common practices that occur within veterinary clinics and evaluates the potential impacts of our own human behaviour and biases on delivering good patient welfare within the veterinary clinic. It explores how the language we use, the way we perceive the world and the way we interact with our patients may inadvertently influence their behaviour and in turn impact upon their welfare.     

News

Every practice manager, veterinary surgeon, veterinary nurse and lay staff member should take a look at their reception area (often inappropriately still referred to as ‘the waiting room’), and study just what message clients are taking away with them.     

Care of the competitive Obedience dog

ABSTRACT

Competitive Obedience is a sport enjoyed by handlers and dogs alike. The competitive Obedience dog is an elite canine athlete, and as such is exposed to additional stresses and strains over and above those experienced by the average pet dog. Owners of competition dogs have high expectations from their veterinary practice in terms of the treatment and prevention of sport-related injuries, and this demand for highly-specialised care has led to the development of canine sports medicine.     

Lived experiences with unmet supportive care needs in pediatric cancer: Perspective of Chinese children and their parents

ObjectiveUnmet supportive care needs(SCNs) impact pediatric cancer patients and their parents. This study aimed to explore the unmet SCNs from the perspective of Chinese children with cancer and their parents through lived experiences.MethodsThe data of this study was collected using face-to-face semi-structured interviews. The participants were recruited from the oncology units of three children’s hospitals in China’s cities (Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hefei) from October 2020 to December 2021. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi’s seven-step phenomenological analysis method.ResultsEight pediatric cancer patients and twenty-four parents were enrolled in the study. Four main themes and eight subthemes (both children’s and parent’s perspectives) were generated: 1) meeting the ongoing needs along the cancer trajectory (can you tell me what comes next; our needs are growing); 2) communicating with a family focus (they only talk to my parents; let each family member have a voice); 3) providing care beyond the treatment (I am bigger than my body [the children’s needs for emotional consolidation and information about their prognosis]; there are things beyond treatment); 4) getting support from the community (I am not a monster [the children were unhappy about being treated differently]; we want to connect with the resources near us).ConclusionThis study revealed multiple unmet SCNs from the perspective of Chinese children with cancer and their parents. The findings call for comprehensive and in-depth supportive care beyond treatment, integration of the family member voice in pediatric cancer care, and a coordinated pediatric cancer support mechanism in the Chinese healthcare system.     

Working with the visually impaired dog

ABSTRACT:

Visual impairment in dogs can arise through a variety of acute and progressive diseases, trauma and illnesses. This can be distressing for both the patient and owner because significant adjustments are needed to maintain quality of life. Veterinary nurses can help owners to understand the aids that can be implemented to support their pet and how to monitor developments and progress in its condition. As well as supporting owners at home, veterinary nurses must also implement specific holistic care for these patients in the hospital to maintain quality of life and reduce concern for both the owner and dog.     

Crossword No 7

Change the A (for attitude) to I for (incentive) and you've gone from fat to fit. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as that in practice. Working to change an owner's attitude to their pet from ‘she prefers what we eat’ or ‘he won't eat it’ or the old classic ‘she's happy’, is an everyday barrier to having a healthier pet. People don't like to put on weight themselves and feel guilty about eating that extra chocolate biscuit, although they will happily share it with their pet; as was the case with one particular client with a very overweight staffie (as are many), who announced he had to offer his pet three different types of biscuit before the dog decided to eat the fourth one! Here, Beverley Quirk comes to the rescue with some hints for running an obesity clinic.