Is a vet obliged to decline treatment for an animal if his x-ray machine is out of order ?

Question

My vet suggested manual manipulations for my cat (under sedation) to see if he could sense an intestinal blockage( I thought that my cat had a lodged hairball, he was vomitting and not eating). He then said that his x-ray machine was down, and he would have to open him up if he could not detect anything with his hands.... I agreed without further thought.... My cat underwent the operation, but other than a normal amount of stool in his intestine, there was no blockage. He has been there for two days now, and when they try to feed him, he still vomits. For now they have injected him with something to inhibit the vimitting, and are tube feeding him. I'm waiting to see how this works out.... I was wondering if anyone knows anything about how this particular situation is normally treated. I feel that the vet is at fault.... He should have sent me to another clinic for an x-ray.... What do you think I should do? What recourse do I have ?

Thank you all in advance :)

Answer 1

How completely irresponsible of your vet to perform surgery needlessly! Can you imagine a physician telling a human patient - we don't know why you are vomiting & the x-ray is broken, so we're going to do surgery? I would expect a vet to treat his patients with the same sort of respect!

I'm not sure what recourse you have other than to report the vet to the state board which licenses vets. I'd also think about refusing to pay for the surgery - I hate to say sue him but he was wrong to do that to you and your cat!

I hope you have other vets in your area that you can bring your animals to in the future - although, after reading your story and hearing the stories of my friends and family about how their vets treated them and their pets - I'm starting to think that all vets are just money-grubbing charlatans.

I hope your cat is better soon - it must be very upsetting for you! Good luck and best wishes!

Edit - I've seen what some folks have written here about the fact that you accepted treatment for your cat even though you knew the x-ray was down. I'd just like to remind them that it is very upsetting when you have a sick pet and it can be hard to think straight or make the "right" decision.

Vets should be more responsible towards their patients (&owners) and give them full disclosure of their options when confronted with a problem - they should not be taking advantage of people who are upset and possibly not thinking completely clearly.

It's really too bad that there isn't a code of ethics set up that veteranarians have to follow.

Answer 2

I too am a Veterinary Technician, licensed with the state of Maine and have 15 yrs experience. My cat did the same exact thing and we could not find out why he was vomiting. Because I know what an animal goes through in recovery to an exploratory, I declined it. Luckily my kitty vomitted up a big bunch of feathers from a dream catcher about a week later. It was a rough time before that though. I sympathize with your plight, but I don't think your veterinarian was out of line. They do so love to do exploratories it seems. I do believe he should have tried to get an xray before, but not everything your cat eats is radio-opague, meaning shows up on an xray. A hair ball would not show up on an xray, it is not dense enough. They can do a barium series, inject a radio-opague die in the system and find where the blockage is, but this not an easy procedure. They may or may not have been helpful in diagnosis. I sincerely hope he did bloodwork and there was nothing left to do but the exploratory. I hope your kitty recovers. If it was a major illness causing the vomiting there may not be anything you can do anyway. I am praying for your kitty. Please let us know how it turns out!

Answer 3

i'm sorry to hear that your kitty has been doing poorly and hasn't been diagnosed with anything yet, but as both a pet owner and a vet tech, i can't say that i agree with your assessment of the situation. while i think that x-rays MIGHT have been able to tell the vet if there was a blockage, sometimes not even then will it show up without exploratory surgery. and given that the vet did tell you that his machine was down, you had the option of saying that you'd like to go to one who had one running. that you are now sorry you didn't isn't the vet's fault, nor should it be considered bad medicine on his part. he is obliged to offer you the sevices he can do, then you are obliged to figure out if you want him to. and while it can be difficult to make the "right" decision when under stress of having a sick pet, you cannot hold the vet accountable because you wish you had done otherwise unless he was really pressuring you and insisting you stay with him, which doesn't seem to be the case since you did it "without further thought." he gave you his options, you chose. what else is there to figure out?

there is virtually no insurance for animals, so treatment can become expensive, especially if a cause is unknown and you're having to take shots in the dark. but having worked at a clinic for years, i can tell you that vets don't rake in the money. in fact, on many big things, they lose money. where else but in a true animal lover can you find someone who's willing to go to school for nearly a decade, rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to work with patients who can't even tell them what's wrong, just to start out of school making less than $50K a year? whomever thought vets are only in it for the money obviously has no clue what they make.

Answer 4

The same thing happened with my cat. He was vomiting every time he ate and was not able to eat after that. He was vomiting about 2 - 3 times a day. I took him to the vet and he gave my cat a shot because they told me that he had bad allergies and when his allergies are high, it causes his stomach to be upset. I wish I could say exactly what he had but I can't think of it at the top of my head but it had the word 'inflamed' in it. Try looking it up. I hope this helps.

Lastly, after the shot he was fine and we started feeding him Science Diet for Felines and it works well.

Answer 5

oh I am so sorry that your kitty and you had to go through all of this. yes the ethical thing for your vet to have done was to refer you to another clinic right away. when your kitty gets well enough to come home I would take him to another vet. obviously this vet has not found the problem yet and will of course want more and more expensive tests and procedures to diagnose anything. (was kitty poisoned by anything??) but more than that your poor kit is not getting any better! I am not sure about any recourse, I think I would consult someone that knows more about law when kitty gets better.. but getting kitty better is number one right now. I am sorry, I wish you and kitty the best of luck

Answer 6

do no longer understand the question,yet once you're asking why she basically had a million puppy,merely be grateful your puppy survived if a small Chihuahua and you have basically one a million/2 breed to locate a house for till you propose on conserving it.I understand that injuries can ensue alongside with this,yet a woman must be saved in an area the place a male won't be able to get to her before each little thing symptoms of her warmth cycle,and have her spayed in case you do no longer desire doggies.

Answer 7

I've stated this before. Many veterinarians are just in the business to make money and aren't concerned with ethics or even the best course of treatment for their patients.

Forewarned is forearmed. You accepted his suggestion and the exploratory was inconclusive. Legally, you don't have a case for malpractice unless (God forbid) your pet dies.

Always, always, always get a second opinion.

Answer 8

Since you agreed to it, they really aren't at fault. If were hesitent, you should have taken you cat in for a second opinion. It's going to be kind of hard to do that now that your cat is on an IV.

Answer 9

He offered you a service, you accepted. If you didn't like the idea he was proposing, or had questions about it, why didn't you ask? You agreed to the procedures he outlined, unless he did something incorrect in a medical sense, I don't see this being his fault.

Answer 10

he did tell you up front that his machine was down and told you he could do the treatment this other way. you consented to it. you could have declined and taken your cat to another facility or asked the vet for a referal.