Unforgettable Experience

I was a 4^th year vet student and I encountered this unforgettable case which completely pissed me off. It happened few years ago when a client asked our professor (vet) to spay her dog. Our professor then suggested the owner to let his best students perform the operation and the owner agreed instantly and she even signed a waiver. Our professor assigned our group to perform the operation since he knew that in our class, we have the best performance in surgery. Best in the sense that we follow protocol, applied the necessary things needed in performing an operation, have the highest grades, and most of all have the knowledge how to handle every patient with care. We are the top performing group in all surgical operations we have, including outside the campus outreach. Every one of us did our very best in all the operations we had, even though we don’t accept any payments.

The operation took an hour and a half since the patient weighs about 15 lbs., quite obese though. We called the owner and told her that we have already finished the operation. The owner came to the clinic and asked us to release the dog in her care, which is of course not included in our protocol. She was insisting to release the dog and she even made her own waiver and signed it. We consulted our professor about the issue and he talked to the owner about it. Their conversation lasted almost an hour since our professor explained her thoroughly the post-operative care for the patient. She still insisted to release the patient to her and our professor got no other choice but to release the dog, considering that she signed the waiver for release. The waiver was authenticated by our college dean who is also a vet and we the group mates also signed it as the surgeon, assistant surgeon, anesthesiologist, scrub nurse and utility. We released the patient to her care and we even provided her the necessary information about emergency care.

A day later, the dog’s suture broke and opened his abdomen about one inch. The intestines were already contaminated with debris and been bleeding for a few hours. The owner called and told us about the case and we immediately went to her house but she is not around, nobody is even around except for the dogs. The gates were locked and we cannot get in. We tried to climb in the fence but the other dogs will definitely bite us. We tried calling the owner many times but got no answer. We just waited outside her house and looking at the dog bleeding endlessly. There’s a concerned neighbor that approached us while waiting outside the house and told us a very disappointing news. He said that the owner is not taking care of the patient since they arrive after the operation. She only left the dog outside and tied her to the garage post and few hours later, she released the dog to walk freely outside the house and even mingle with the stray dogs.

Few hours later, the owner arrived. She was attending her class during the time we called her that’s why she wasn’t able to answer her phone. By the way, the owner is a college dean in our school but in a different course. She just got a call from her neighbor about the patient’s case and she then called us. We immediately perform the surgery after the owner arrived in an aseptic place we prepared earlier. The surgery took us almost 6 hours, the dog’s intestines were severed and we had to carefully suture it back after we took a few centimeters out. After the surgery, we took the dog to the clinic and continuously observing every minute until her last breath.  Sadly, the dog died around 2:38 am. We tried all our best to revive her but of no luck.

The morning comes, the owner already knew what happened to her dog. She came to us bashing with anger and asking “why”, “what happened” and all the insults you can think of.

The dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, our professor and our group mates attended her case and given our full explanations of what went wrong.

First and foremost, she agreed to let us handle the operation and she even signed a waiver for us to perform the surgery and we did not suggest and didn’t even consider the release of the patient to her care right after the operation. Only the owner insisted and she even made a waiver to release the dog to her care even without full recovery from the operation. She signed two waivers; one is to let us perform the operation and the second is to release the patient to her care after the surgery without full recovery. She then blames us for lack of knowledge in handling the patient and in operating procedure.

During the surgery, the vet (our professor) observed every small move we had. All of us who performed the surgery have given our very best to the patient; we followed protocol, we completely understand and applied the code of ethics all the way and did nothing wrong to deserve a long annoying insult.

We were almost expelled from the school due to her but considering her neighbor’s testimony and the waivers she signed with authentication of our dean, it was never our fault of what went wrong.

This was the first case we've encountered that our patient died given our full efforts in the operation and we were blamed for what happened even if it was never our fault to begin with. All of us were frustrated and feel sorry for the patient and got totally pissed off to the ungrateful owner who just let her dog bled for a few hours.