Small Animal Surgery

Here are some things you should know before arriving for your pet’s appointment with the Small Animal Surgery service at the Atlantic Veterinary College.

• Fasting: For the majority of our appointments, we ask that your pet arrives with an empty stomach. This means no food or treats after 10pm the night before your appointment, so please make sure you pick up your pet’s food bowl before you go to bed. Your pet should still have access to water overnight.  If your pet is very young, very small (less than 2kg/5lb), receiving medications, is diabetic, or you have any questions about fasting, please call the AVC prior to your appointment to discuss the appropriate way to fast your pet.
• Elimination:  Your pet should follow their normal routine for urinating and defecating prior to arriving at the AVC-VTH.  Please try to keep your pet from eliminating just prior to walking into the VTH as we may need to collect a urine sample.
• Medications:  Please continue to give your pet any medications as prescribed by your family veterinarian. If you need to give your pet’s medication with a small amount of food, this small amount of food can be given despite the fasting instructions above. Please bring all current medications in their original bottles with you to your appointment.
• How to be referred:  Your family veterinarian will discuss with you if referral to a veterinary specialist is recommended for your pet.  If you choose to proceed with that option, your family veterinarian will contact us to provide all of the necessary information and to request an appointment.  Our Client Services representatives will then contact you to schedule your appointment date and time.
• Medical Records: We require your pet’s previous medical records in order to fully evaluate their condition. Your family veterinarian will send your pet’s records to us without the need for you to do anything. If your pet has visited more than one veterinary clinic for the current condition please arrange for all records to be sent to us.
• Payments:  At the Atlantic Veterinary College Teaching Hospital we accept debit cards, most major credit cards and cash.  If you have any questions about your payment options please contact our hospital for more information.
• Insurance:  Do you have pet insurance?  If so, please bring your policy details with you for your appointment.  If not, we encourage you to research pet insurance, which can help ease your financial worries for your pet’s unexpected healthcare costs.
• Financing:  The Atlantic Veterinary College Teaching Hospital works with PayBright to offer our clients low-cost financing support.  Please visit the PayBright website to learn more about what financing options may be available to you.

• What is a teaching hospital?

As the teaching hospital for Atlantic Veterinary College veterinary students, our goal at the AVC-VTH is to provide exceptional veterinary care to your pet while also providing clinical teaching and instruction to our senior (final year) veterinary students, interns and residents.  Students participate in many aspects of examining and treating our patients under the immediate supervision of our licensed veterinarians and board-certified veterinary specialists.  Incorporating teaching into your pet’s appointment does take additional time, but our clinical care team do their best to provide prompt, efficient service within the hospital’s teaching environment.  As the only institution in Atlantic Canada educating doctors of veterinary medicine, teaching is essential to our hospital, however the well-being of our patients remains the highest priority for our clinical care team.

In addition to educating our students, our specialty services also provide advanced clinical teaching to interns and residents.  These are licensed veterinarians pursuing additional training to gain advanced competency in a specific area of veterinary medicine.

The AVC-VTH is a multi-disciplinary hospital.  Our Small Animal Surgery service works in conjunction with other specialty services within our hospital including radiology, cardiology, anesthesia, internal medicine, dermatology as well as our diagnostic laboratory, to ensure that your pet has access to the best in specialty care, diagnostic testing and treatment.

• What to expect during your appointment?
  • Your clinical care team will typically include a registered veterinary technician, senior (final year) veterinary student, an intern, a resident and a senior specialist clinician.  Behind the scenes, the wider hospital team will provide the highest level of care and attention to meet your pet’s needs during their stay.
  • A veterinary student, dedicated to your pet during their visit, will greet you and your pet upon your arrival and bring you to an examination room.
  • Your student will discuss your pet’s condition with you, including asking questions to obtain a full medical history and performing an initial physical examination.
  • You may be asked to stay in the exam room or return to the waiting area while your student brings your pet to the hospital’s common treatment room to discuss the case with senior team members.
  • Your pet’s assessment may take some time while we perform physical examinations, review medical records, and analyze previously performed diagnostic tests. Once this is completed, a clinician (or clinicians) will discuss our findings and recommendations with you, which may include for example additional diagnostic tests such as blood tests, x-rays, ultrasound examination and biopsies.
  • In order to be thorough and to fully understand your pet’s condition so that we can make better recommendations, you may be asked questions that you have already discussed with your student or with your family veterinarian.  Please be patient during this process and remember to ask any questions that you may have so that we can understand all of your concerns about your pet or the options discussed.
  • Specialty appointments may take several hours or the duration of the clinic day to complete.  If you choose to pursue our recommended diagnostics and/or treatment options, together we will make a plan to proceed with performing those.  Often, routine diagnostics or treatments (e.g. x-rays and bloodwork) can be completed on the day of your appointment. For more advanced diagnostic testing (e.g., biopsy, CT scan) or surgical procedures where the coordinated efforts of multiple specialty services are required, your pet typically will need to stay overnight at the hospital, and those will be performed on the following day.    Many of our patients require hospital stays over multiple nights to complete all diagnostic tests, treatments and procedures.
  • Depending on the nature of the case and the current hospital schedule, your pet may need to go home after your consultation and return for diagnostic or surgical procedures at a later, mutually convenient date.
  • We make every attempt to schedule diagnostics and treatments in a timely manner.  As a hospital that treats critically ill emergency patients, we do occasionally have to postpone scheduled diagnostics or procedures.  As with human hospitals, we will always work to care for the needs of the most urgent patients first.
  • If your pet requires an extended period of hospitalization your clinical care team will provide regular updates on your pet’s condition and will work with you to develop ongoing plans for your pet’s care.  These updates also provide you with an opportunity to ask any questions you may have regarding your pet’s care or their condition.
  • Our hospital is staffed 24-hours a day by veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians so your pet will never be alone and will be closely monitored and cared for any time of day or night.
  • When your pet’s visit is complete and they are ready to go home, your pet’s clinical care team will arrange a time to meet with you to review the outcomes of the diagnostic tests and procedures performed, as well as to go through any recommendations for home-care and follow-up care.  A written discharge summary of our findings and recommendations will be provided to you as well as forwarded to your family veterinarian so that they are aware of your pet’s ongoing care requirements.

• Do I have to leave a deposit and how are payments made?
  • The clinician responsible for your pet will discuss all of the recommended diagnostics and treatments and will review with you an estimate for your pet’s care.    We understand that each pet and client is unique and we will work with you to determine the most appropriate options for your family.
  • This estimate will cover a range because some elements of your pet’s stay may vary, such as the treatment and length of hospitalization, depending on what they find and how your pet responds to treatment.
  • Before we can proceed with your pet’s diagnostic and treatment plans, you will be required to leave a deposit of 50% of the upper range of the estimate.
  • If changes are recommended to your pet’s care plan during their hospitalization, you will be provided with an updated estimate and may be asked to top-up your deposit amount.
  • The remainder of the balance will be due at the time of discharge.
• Payments:  At the Atlantic Veterinary College Teaching Hospital we accept debit cards, most major credit cards and cash.  If you have any questions about your payment options please contact our hospital for more information.
• Insurance:  Do you have pet insurance?  If so, please bring your policy details with you for your appointment.  If not, we encourage you to research pet insurance, which can help ease your financial worries for your pet’s unexpected healthcare costs.
• Financing:  The Atlantic Veterinary College Teaching Hospital works with PayBright to offer our clients low-cost financing support.  Please visit the PayBright website to learn more about what financing options may be available to you.