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Pre-Surgical Information

Spaying or neutering your pet is a big step! There is a lot to consider when we are planning your pet’s surgery. Here is some information to help you make wise decisions.   Click here . . .

 
   

 

   
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No DescriptionConsumer Guide
to Elective 
Surgery:  Best Practices





When you called up Sunnyside Veterinary Clinic and asked, “how much is it to get my dog spayed?,” you were probably expecting a simple answer, like “$100.”  And if all dogs and all owners were the same, we could have given you a simple “$100" answer.  But all dogs and all owners are not the same.  Some dogs are young, some are old.  Some weigh 4 pounds, some weigh 100 pounds.  Some owners want the best medicine available for their pet, others want the bare minimum.  Bottom line: all spays are not the same.  You see, anesthesia and surgery an be done in a very sophisticated way, using all the modern techniques that minimize pain, swelling, and blood loss, maximize safety, and promote the fastest recovery.  Or they can be done in a more “Git’R Done” kind of way.  There are a lot of choices in veterinary medicine, and this is a good thing.

When you, a human being, go to the hospital to have an operation, there aren’t many choices.   In human medicine, they do things the very best way they know how.  It’s a human life, after all.   Human anesthetists and surgeons use the very best techniques they have available.  These “Best Practices,” as they are called, are the best medical science has to offer us in the 21st century.  These Best Practices are well-defined, and every doctor follows best practices.  Not many people are willing to accept less for themselves.  

So, when you go to the hospital to have surgery done on yourself, you probably won’t spend a whole lot of time talking with your No Descriptionanesthetist about whether or not you want him to monitor your blood pressure during the procedure, or whether or not you want to have an IV line in during anesthesia.  We expect and assume that they will use Best Practices to make the procedure as safe and comfortable for us as possible.  Similarly, you won’t spend a lot of time talking with your surgeon about whether he uses a laser, cautery, or whether or not he is going to prescribe pain medication.  Best Practices are the rule.

You may be surprised to learn that this is not the case in veterinary medicine.  Things are not always done according to Best Practices.  Sometimes we cut some corners in anesthesia and pain control in the name of economy that would be malpractice for a human anesthesiologist or surgeon.  This may or may not be a bad thing, depending on what you expect and the level of care you desire for your pet.

The good news is that even when we provide care at the human level, best practices all the way, we are still able to provide the surgery much less expensively than the human surgeons.  Rather than costing the $7,000 to $10,000 that a hysterectomy would cost a woman, spaying even a huge dog can be done with Best Practices for $248, less for smaller patients.

What are these Best Practices?  Best Practices involves using the best techniques and equipment we have available to minimize pain, swelling, and blood loss, maximize safety, and promote the fastest recovery.  They include:

Pre-emptive Pain Management: Much more than just sending home some “pain pills” after surgery, Pre-emptive Pain Management is using several of the best pain medications in combinations in ways that stop the pain before it starts.  The effects of pre-emptive pain management last far longer than the hospital stay, because they dampen the pain response before it even starts.  Pre-emptive pain management involves both the art and the science of pain control.  If you let us, Veterinarians can often provide superior pain relief for our patients than  many human surgeons provide for theirs.

The Safest Anesthesia: Anesthesia has a lot higher chance of injuring the patient than the actual surgery does.  Best Practices include pre-anesthetic blood testing,  pre-medication, rapid IV induction, airway control, gas anesthesia, careful monitoring and charting, IV fluid support and venous access, a dedicated anesthetist, and a supervised recovery.  We are very proud of our anesthesia program here at Sunnyside Veterinary Clinic.  We monitor breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and expired CO2,.  To the right is an example of what our anesthesia charts look like.

The Latest in Surgical Techniques and Instruments: In the 21st century we now have an alternative to the steel scalpel that minimizes pain, swelling, infection risk, blood loss, and promotes a faster return to normal function.  The new surgical lasers do provide significant benefits to our patients.  

If you have some budget concerns, we understand.  Life is like that.  Sometimes we have to make compromises.  We want all our clients to feel comfortable with the level of care their pets receive here.  During our pre-surgery meeting, we can go over some things that can be dropped out to decrease the cost.  There are consequences to dropping things out, but we can discuss that and come up with the best care we can with the budget we have.  We want you to get the care you want for your pet, and to want the care that you get.  The pre-surgical visit is not an exercise in guilt trips or high-pressure sales. You may find it helpful to click this link and go to Surgical Options , a discussion on what some of the options are.

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