I recently went to my 20 year veterinary school reunion at Cornell University. There is absolutely nowhere prettier than upstate New York in June, and it was so great to catch up with friends and colleagues, many of whom I had not seen since graduation.  As I drove home, I thought about some of the things I’ve learned over the last 20 years as a practicing veterinarian. Things that I could pass along to pet owners that would also resonate with other veterinarians. Lessons learned, many times, the hard way. Here are 5 things that I believe are worth sharing.

Lesson #1: "A tired dog is a good dog."  We get a LOT of behavioral questions in veterinary medicine.  When I was a general practitioner, I’d have “the talk” with every puppy owner as well as any client who mentioned that their dog was destructive or “high energy”.  Healthy dogs should get AT LEAST 30 minutes of exercise a day...much like humans.  If they don’t, depending on the breed, they will take it out on your walls/furniture/rugs/valuables.  I’ve learned that this rule applies to children too.

It's still WAY too hard for a general practitioner to send a patient to a veterinary specialist or emergency clinic. And the information sharing that occurs once a patient ends up in a referral hospital leaves much to be desired.

Today, referrals are still largely managed through a time-consuming and error-prone process involving faxing, photocopying, and filing paper referrals. This has been the "status quo" for many years, and while it still works, it needs a facelift to maintain effectiveness in the 21st century.

Your pet may have a lurking condition that could spell big trouble if they go to the ER without their full medical records. The pets in this video will tell you all about it.

May 1, 2015 - Columbia, MD - Today VitusVet announces the launch of their mobile app for consumers, which allows users to view their pets’ complete medical records any time in the palm of their hand.

The app is expected to save pet owners hundreds of dollars each year by consolidating medical information (i.e. labwork, X-Rays, vaccine dates, prescriptions, etc.) from all pet caretakers, thus avoiding the repeat testing that plagues ‘offline’ veterinary medicine.  VitusVet speaks for pets, who can’t answer questions themselves.

INTRODUCTION:

We know how hard it is to get the whole team together for training on a new system. But it's critical to your practice for everyone to work with VitusVet effectively.

To that end, we have created three short (5 minutes or less) videos that your staff can watch on their next break in order to understand some of the core features of VitusVet.