Local Vet

[yangelina.livejournal.com]

Hi Everybody,
Search function wouldn't work right so this may have been answered previously here:
Recommendation for a good vet in the area? Something's not quite right with my cat and I'm slightly concerned.
Thanks!

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

porter sq vet is great for anything routine or non-life-threatening.

on the scary side, they misdiagnosed a swallowed-foreign-object as an "infection", and one of my cats got sicker and sicker for two months under their care. seven thousand dollars at angell memorial hospital later, he got better, but no thanks to porter sq vet.

i still use porter for regular care, but if it gets past their skill level, i recommend angell.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

which of the doctors did you see?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

three different ones over the course of his illness.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

as a note from the inside, that kind of thing can and does happen at angell too. :/

no matter where you go you're going to occasionally get a misdiagnosis. i'm glad you're still sticking by porter for regular care at least; we've seen a lot of clients get totally pissed off at their rdvms when our opinions differ and they won't go back because of a mistake that could really happen anywhere, at any time, depending on a number of factors.

that said, angell can be quite excellent :)

(also, from what i've heard around here, swallowed foreign objects can be difficult to diagnose without hitting the animal hard with all sorts of random tests from the get-go-- still, an infection? that's weird, unless the object caused some sort of weird inflammation or something was found in the blood cultures. i guess i'd need to hear more of the story!)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

sure -- the issue isn't misdiagnosis per se; that happens everywhere (i work at mgh myself :) but angell had imaging equipment that porter sq didn't, and i think that made the difference.

my very large, skinny-at-15# cat was down to 7.5# and in "fair" condition when i took him to angell, and was unable to even keep down water. porter sq had prescribed almost exclusively antibiotics. *shrug*

[freyja.livejournal.com]

huh. you'd think they'd at least mention imaging or obstructions! or even an abscess in the throat...

even with our incredibly ridiculous amount of access to imaging and such i can assure you that animals don't always get imaged when they "should" :P did they do x-rays at all at porter, and it just didn't show up?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure if they did x-rays at porter -- i tend to think not, as the object was part metal and part plastic, and should have shown up if they did. but i don't have the complete records, so i hesitate to say for sure.