Referring patients to an exotic pet specialist

Katherine Quesenberry, DVM, MPH, DABVP (Avian), chief medical officer, senior veterinarian, specialist in avian medicine and service head of avian and exotic medicine for Schwarzman Animal Medical Center in New York, New York, recently offered her insights on exotic pets and the conditions that commonly affect them, in a dvm360 interview. In this video, she speaks about exotic animal care, tasks that many veterinarians can manage, the comfort levels of general practitioners and when they should consider referring a case to a specialist.

RELATED VIDEO: Pet trends for exotic species

The following is a transcript of the video:

dvm360: When should an exotic pet be referred to a specialist for medical care?

Katherine Quesenberry, DVM, MPH, DABVP (Avian): That really depends on the knowledge base and comfort level and expertise of the practitioner. There are a lot of practitioners out there that do very good medicine with exotics, and some practitioners [that are] not at all adept. So it really depends on what they feel comfortable with.

I think almost any practitioner can provide initial triage supportive care, be it with fluids, pain medication, if an animal is bleeding, [and] trying to stop the bleeding. So basically, I think initial triage circumstances, anyone can handle anyone—I should say most general practitioners can handle that type of thing. If it gets to the point where it's very complicated, meaning that it's not clear cut what's going on, or it's a surgical procedure that a general practitioner doesn't feel comfortable with, or if it requires a level of diagnostic test that the general practitioner may not have access to, such as CT or ultrasound or something like that, then that's certainly a time to refer.

If they don't feel comfortable handling the situation, they should certainly refer. If the animal is very sick and it needs very intensive care and they can't provide 24 hour care, or at least some reasonable care overnight, then that's also a time to refer to a larger referral center that can provide that type of care and access to specialists. Certainly, maybe it's an animal—it could be a rabbit—that you suspect cardiac disease, and you need a cardiac ultrasound, or a consult, or something like that. Those are all situations where it would be good or better to refer.

RELATED ARTICLE: Exploring exotic emergencies