earlier this year a lot of you slated me for complaining that my vet had an incredible 10mnth maternity leave with out providing consistant and first rate care for my dog, well i warn you all, my dog has just died and it was traced back to a problem he had last year and was not treated properly for despite our very best efforts, although he recovered to a certain extent it weakened him so much because of the prolonged diagnostic and treatment time,he could not fight a very simple bug off,so take heed

This surely has nothing to do with a vet being on maternity leave!!!!!!! 

It's always sad to hear of anyone losing a much loved pet - but it's not really the time to bring this up again :(

Daisy

I'm so sorry to hear of the death of your beloved dog - I know nothing we can say or do can help the situation - remember the good times.

Regards
Margot

I'm sorry to hear your dog has died - I've lost several myself, and a current one is very frail - but that can have nothing to do with a vet taking maternity leave.

am i the only one reading the post right? pru clearly states that the vet did nOt provide CONSISTANT FIRST CLASS COVER for the 10 mnths she was off .surely if it was one of your dogs you would find this unaceptable. i have been in a similar position where my dog was passed from pillar to post a different vet every time each with a different opinion luckily zeb did not have any lasting bad effects unlike prus poor dog. so pru, my heart go`s out to you as yours must be breaking at the moment i am so so sorry for your tragedy and i will certainly be saying a prayer for you and your boy tonight

Moondrops, the vet concerned took 10 months maternity leave, leaving plenty of fully qualified vets covering her place in the practice - exactly the same situation as if she'd been ill, changed practice, retired or died. Vets are human beings who are entitled to a homelife, the same as the rest of us.

please get off your high horse, she did not leave plenty of cover[i was  not the only one to complain] how you know is beyond me unless you use the practice your self what the situation was i was just warning people  what can happen if you do not get consistant first class cover. i just hope you are never in that position. polly i did change vets in fact i had to take him to a veterinary hospital to get him as well as he did. and no i will not be using that  practice again  because i canot trust them with my hounds and a lot of others felt the same

I'm remembering what you said in your original posts, pru - that you didn't want to consult the vets who were covering her absence.
http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?pid=509996#pid509996

Hi Pru  Sorry to hear that you have lost your dog its very sad when we have to part with our much loved pets.
could you not have taken him to another vets for treatement. I know if i wasnt happy with my vet and the way they treated a pet of mine im sorry i would take mine elsewhere

I'm very sorry about your loss.  It's never easy and always painful but try and focus on the happy times with your boy - that may help a little at least to help you work through it :(

Best wishes, Teri

Hi Pru, you are clearly distraught at losing your dog. When you have shared your life with an animal for 14 years, losing them is extremely difficult to bear, but I wonder whether at 14 years old it was simply his time, none of them go on for ever. It is of course sad that in his final months he was so ill, but I can't agree that any of it was the fault of the vet, perhaps because you are so upset, you are looking for a scapegoat. :(

Being a surgeon as you are, you must have found yourself unable to always be 'on duty' as it were 24/7 at times in the past. That does not mean that you have left your patients without medical/surgical/anaesthetic cover for the times when you were at home, on holiday or whatever.

Time will help you to feel a little better than you do at present, but I understand your sadness, we all here have lost canine friends and my heart is heavy right now just talking about losing a dog. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and carry on.

Thinking of you.

Dawn R.

Pru - I'm so sorry to hear you've lost your beloved dog. I know, from experience, that it's doubly hard when you're convinced the loss is due to someone else's lack of care.

Unfortunately I've seen many women who, before they start their families, are 100% committed to their jobs/careers but are less so once they have children. I suppose it's natural that their priorities change but sometimes there are consequences for either their colleagues or their clients.  I know many will argue against this but, over the years, I've seen it happen time after time....

Yes, their priorities change... and it can't be predicted either. And yes, whilst there may be consequences for the colleagues and clients, its up to the business itself to ensure the impact is minimilised - not the woman herself.

I don't agree, Chloe. Why should the employer bear the brunt ?
Anyway, one of the most effective ways for businesses to minimilise the impact is no longer legally available....

I'm not getting involved in this argument again. Its been done to death on here.

You're right - it has.

>one of the most effective ways for businesses to minimilise the impact is no longer legally available....<

I am not believing what I am reading. :-(

Sorry hear of your loss
Unless i have misunderstood the postings what i belive you are saying is that women can't work in this enviroment incase they fall in love and have a family.

with 1 or 2 exceptions,yes you are misunderstanding, all i am saying is that first class and consistant cover should have been provided if it had then diagnostics and treatment would have been much quicker and lasting damage would have been avoided.

and we have repeatedly mentioned this is NOTHING to do with a woman taking maternity leave!!!

I can't believe what I am reading either Blue!

Jacky, Pru is naturally grieving and hurting badly, and is striking out. We've all felt this grief, and the time will come when Pru sees that her beloved dog's death is a simple tragedy, and there's no way anyone can know what might have happened under different circumstances. I'm sure she'll realise that a woman taking maternity leave (actually less than she was entitled to take) has no bearing on the situation. In the meantime she needs to strike out. This phase will pass in time.

I think what she might be trying to say is that a more permanent vet should have been provided for the length of maternity leave which I personally dont think is too unreasonable.  I have had problems with vets which just cover for a couple of weeks as well which is one reason I left my last vets practice. 

pru im so sorry for your loss

Of course we are all sorry for Pru's loss.  It is never easy when someone loses someone dear to them, animal or otherwise.

It's still not fair, no matter how upset you are, to say that female vets should only be employed when they're post-menopause. That's denying excellent care to hundreds of animals. In time Pru will realise this.

thomas the spot, right on, at last someone who is  reading the latest posts, i believe this is exactly what pru is saying.i am really surprised that as doggie people you do not understand that quality cover,for all leave should be mandatory in all practices. how many of you would be happy for your poorly pet in the hands of several novice vets,and how many of you would just accept that a delay in diagnosis and treatment contributed to your pets death without airing your grievences.  pru how did you come to the conclusion that late treatment and diagnosis was a contributary factor in you boys death?

moondrops, a highly qualified consult vet at the best veterinary hospital in ny told me that in HER opinion if diagnosis and treament had been made sooner it would not have contributed to his death. i know i am not liked on here because i dare to speak out about a working mother but all she had to do is provide quality cover.i do and i am sure a lot of women have to.we ALL  have responsibilities

That word 'quality' is a matter of opinion. What is quality to me, might not be quality to you and vice versa. I would imagine the vet in question, felt she HAD arranged quality cover.

Dawn R.

Pru
you wrote

i know i am not liked on here because i dare to speak out about a working mother but all she had to do is provide quality cover .i do and i am sure a lot of women have to.we ALL  have responsibilities

That isn't all you said!!  If you had of just said all she had to do is provide quality cover then people may have  agreed  with you and put it down to bad management, or she hired the wrong people.  The question of her sex and personal life  should never had come in to it!

The problems arose when you chose to blame her, not for being a bad vet/manager etc but for being a wife/mother/woman/pre-menopausal loose cannon.  This is sexist and not fair. 

Yes, perhaps she failed to provide *quality cover* but this wasn't because she is a woman.

Its also not a case of not being liked Pru!  There are many people on here who speak their minds and are not afraid too :D  and they are still liked!!  People are empathising with you and supporting you and even sticking up for you, because of the heartbreak you have gone through,  even if they don't agree with your views.

Were her replacement/s qualified vets? Or merely students? If they were fully qualified then that is 'quality cover'. A vet's age or gender is irrelevant.

tell me jeangenie if you were seriously ill  and your experienced doctor passed you off to an inexpierienced string of just qualified medics who took so long to diagnose and treat you , left you in such a state that it was likely to contribute to you death a year later would you be happy and consider it QUALITY care. of course gender comes into it, gender affects every aspect of life .die hard feminists will always disagree and that is their  right . but in my experience, yes we are equal but also very different, and untill men carry babies we will always have to make extra considerations. as for age, well on my team age equals experience. and as long as you keep up with the latest innovations experience will always outshine youthful enthusiasm.

Pru, I'm very sorry for your situation. I know when one of my bitches died suddenly following routine surgery from an unsuspected anaesthetic reaction I wanted to blame someone too. With time I came to realise it was an unfortunate accident. Hindsight is the only 20:20 vision - everyone had done what seemed best at the time. Have you considered counselling to help you come to terms with your bereavement?

There's a vet near here very modern, very posh, expensive premises,(all mod cons) every qualification under the sun perscribed Ivermectin for a friends BC last year, no DNA test was offered beforehand & luckily my friend rang me from the vets as she remembered me dicussing the DNA test with a group of friends, before she agreed to it's use & refused to allow it's use. It is still not licensed for dogs in the UK

He has no excuse it is his practice, yet he provides unsubstandard possibly lethal treatment

It has nothing to do with his sex or age, but he is a large animal vet by experience & sadly it could have cost my friend's dog it's life, he has had the DNA test done & he has the mutated gene !

She has now changed vets !

I am sorry but there is a BIG difference between a vet which has just qualified and a vet who is experience regardless of sex.  Most of the people who give advice on here give advice due to their experiences and the best advice usually comes from those who have had the most working knowledge.  I know that in our vets if I know the young vet who I had problems with over one of my small animals is on I wont go and in a emergancy I would use the other practice which takes me 1/2 hour longer to go.  Just because a person has a few letters in front of their name does not make suitable cover.  I still think that consistant cover is important as well.

Saying that I know that the owner of my vets is not experienced in puppy problems so if at all possible I use the vet who has a couple of litters a year and who I know gives me generally the best advice. 

I dont think anybody would a agree with a statment about using woman past child bearing years but then havent we all made comments we wish we hadnt nowhere in this thread have I seen any statement to that affect.  I am talking as somebody who went on maternity leave and was made redundant so her male collegue could be kept in employment so do understand both sides of the arguement.

One of the vets at our practice is married to one of the other vets & as a partner(& therefore self smployed)got no maternity leave as such(S/E people don't get Mat Leave).

She took surgery on the Monday, had her first baby on the Wednesday(due date)& was back two weeks later, she dd the same for her other three children. The eldest(a girl)starts vet school this semester.

If the vet is a partner & S/E she would not have been entitled to Mat Leave & the partners wuld be jointly responsible for obtaining cover & if she was employed & entitled to Mat Leave her employers would be solely responsible for getting cover(she could have had 12 months off.). Unless it was a one person practice it would not have been her job to sort out cover on her own.

The young vets, at our practice, are never on call alone