Vetnews | Junie 2024 40 « BACK TO CONTENTS This year marks my 26th year as a referral practitioner in veterinary dentistry in South Africa. For this I am ever great full and feel so blessed. In the quarter of a decade many things in veterinary science have changed, but the relationship between a clinician and a referral practice is the key to any referral/specialist work. From our clinic we changed the way we report back to the referral practice in 2016 and decided to give the client a written report, of which we send the SAME report to the clinician/practice that ultimately referred the case. This way we try to make sure the opinion given to the client arrives verbatim at your practice. Since many clients are sent back to you for a follow-up examination we feel this is the best way of communicating. Referral practice is however a very precarious business and it is important for us to also get the necessary information from you. Since the advent of smartphones the amount of information we receive have vastly improved and helped us understand exactly what you saw, or what concerns you. I therefore thought I would share some ideas of what we would like to see should you decide to send a patient for specialist care. 1. Referral note/letter/email/whatsapp message/voice note. We are not fussed by which means you decide to send the information, or at least your summary of the patient. It really creates a wonderful professional atmosphere with the client if you can tell them that their veterinarian has send through all relevant material regarding the case. Clients love it and we make a point to share with them how professional their veterinarian is. In this first note from you all we need is what concerned you, or what did you see. Sending us the entire hospital record of Fluffy since it started coming to your clinic in 2015 may well not be appropriate, unless it is a condition the patient has presented for multiple times. Please try to be more succinct. Please remember to take photos if possible and especially if you are going to biopsy a lump. Speaking from an oral perspective, biopsy sites can heal exceptionally well especially if the lesion is stalked. When we see the patient 2 or 3 weeks down the line, the original tumour site may well be healed and it is impossible to see where the tumour is/was. This is particularly humbling when there is no reference to the exact site in a letter/email. For wildlife cases this is really imperative as I am often required to make a diagnosis and give ideas regarding treatment. Videos are especially helpful in cases where there is a complaint of the patient struggling to prehend food. Clients often show me these videos and it does make a difference for us deciding on the next step. 2. Diagnostic tests/procedures results. Sharing your diagnostic test or procedure results with us is immensely helpful and it already makes sure we get to the next step much quicker. It also helps us to not repeat tests or procedures if your’s were done recently and are of diagnostic quality (esp radiographs). Previous blood results also gives us something to compare to which means we are not looking at a snap shot in time of this patient but have a few reference points that can also help us decide about treatment/management options. 3. Head radiographs Even though CT scans have opened the world for us in terms of diagnosing nasal and maxillofacial pathology, a good set of skull radiographs are very helpful. It is also what many of you have available in practice and I still support the use of them. Please just always make sure to also add a dorsoventral view to the set. This view is important to assess bilateral disease, especially of the TM joints. Dental Column The value of your opinion Prof. Gerhard Steenkamp and Dr. Mareli van de Wetering
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