Untangling pet nutrition in veterinary practice

Veterinarians are usually comfortable poking, prodding, analyzing, and diagnosing what comes out of pets. Sputum, pus, urine, or feces—it's all up for debate. But after receiving a few letters from veterinarians asking for nutrition information, we here at Veterinary Economics realized some of you weren't as comfortable judging what's best to go into pets when it comes to food.

Dr. Craig Woloshyn, a Veterinary Economics Editorial Advisory Board member, urged us to recommend a back-to-basics approach to help practitioners: Do your own research. Look into the details of brands you recommend to clients. Dig back into those nutrition textbooks you had in school (or should have had). Clients follow the important nutrition guidance from veterinarians who are confident in their knowledge. You can find the story "Dig into pet nutrition" starting in this issue. If you've started getting more and more questions from clients about therapeutic diets, home-cooked meals, and organic food, it could be high time to carve out some self-learning or CE on the state of animal nutrition today.

And speaking of bettering oneself, we're bettering our magazine this month in response to feedback we've received for decades: Why do we only see the big hospitals in these pages? Why can't we see greatness in every size of clinic? Starting with this issue, our monthly "Hospital design" feature has been transformed into a new column that will feature tips that any veterinarian can use for dreaming about, building, renovating, or refreshing their hospitals.

Working to share hospital design wisdom with every practitioner is why the 2013 Veterinary Economics Hospital Design Conference at CVC Kansas City Aug. 21-23 features a special one-day remodel and renovation workship. And it's why the 2013 Veterinary Economics Hospital Design Competition (enter at dvm360.com/hoy) is likely to be the best ever.

Brendan Howard, Editor

ve@advanstar.com