1063. Rainy morning and how many years of experience in spay

Tuesday, Aug 28, 2012

For the past months, I have been taking the bus 238 from the Toa Payoh bus interchange to outside the Polyclinic and then walking to the Surgery every weekday, at around 8.30 am. Today, it rained dogs and cats. I drank coffee at Ya Kun coffeeshop and waited till 9am.

It is important for a vet to be around to answer phone calls as many are technical questions. I usually attended to the phone calls instead of leaving them to the receptionist and there have been good responses in the sense that the new clients come for treatment after knowing the technical details which a receptionist will never be able to advise with authority.

However, this morning I received a most direct phone call with the following questions from a lady who wanted her 2-year-old Maltese to be spayed by an experienced vet.

1. Do you have an experienced vet to spay my dog?
2. How long is the spay operation?
3. How long is the whole process?
4. Can I bring her to spay and wait?
5. Can I bathe her?
6. How long will she recover from spay?
7. Since she eats several times a day, how is she going to eat after spay and not starve to death?
8. Can I spay her on Saturday or Sunday?
9. How many years of experience do you have?

ANSWERS
1. We do have experienced vets like Dr Jason Teo, Dr Vanessa Lin and myself (Dr Sing Kong Yuen).
2. For experienced vets, it should take less than 15 minutes for the surgery.
3. The whole process should take less than 30 minutes if there are no complications.
4. The owner can't wait and take the dog home immediately. The dog has to rest and recover for the next 3 hours post-op. "Sometimes, the dog may die during transportation as the dog is not fully normal," I said. "Really?" the caller asked. "The blood and body systems need to stablise after anaesthesia and that would take at least 3 hours of rest."
5. Yes if she covered the op area.
6. Around 10 days normally and without complications and infections.
7. The dog would not eat for the first 24-48 hours after spay and would not starve to death.
8. Best time to spay the dog is on weekdays as the weekends are usually busy. Make an appointment one day before. No food and water after 10 pm the previous day.
9. I have around 30 years of experience.