A vet’s diary: a night on call
Peterborough vet Laura Frost describes a night on call...
It is seven o’clock and the last appointment of the evening has just left the practice. The front door is locked and the phone is switched over to the emergency line. Who knows what type of night is on the horizon? Some nights the phone barely rings, sometimes it never stops. The day has been relatively quiet, so I have a nasty feeling. I eat some food while the going is good. At half seven the phone rings. I answer it with ‘Pengelly and Mizen emergency line’, to hear ‘I need a bit of advice about my dog…’ A five-year-old husky has been bitten on the ear by another dog while running around in a field behind the owner’s house. The ear is bleeding a lot and the dog is in distress. I give advice to put pressure on the wound if possible and come straight to the surgery.
The owners are very stressed by the time they arrive at the surgery. My first job after a quick triage is to reassure them that the bleeding is not life-threatening and that their dog is bright and surprisingly not in too much pain. He proceeds to wag his tail and shake his head vigorously sending a shower of blood up the walls. I apply a head bandage to stop the bleeding (and the mess), give the dog some pain relief and admit him for sedation and repair of the wound in the morning. Just as I sit down the phone rings again. A ten-week-old puppy has been sick twice today. Before giving advice I ask some other questions. The owner has changed her food over the last few days which may have caused the tummy upset. The puppy is still very bright and still keen to eat and drink. I advise to starve the puppy for the rest of the evening, offering water frequently. Then they can feed very small meals of bland food (chicken and rice) for the next 24 hours, but to call back if the puppy is lethargic or if the vomiting continues. A peaceful hour.
I finish my dinner while watching last week’s episode of Holby City on iPlayer. One of my duties as the on-call vet is to give any inpatients their evening treatments. At our city branch, where I am based, we have an elderly cat with kidney disease on a drip. All I need to do is check the drip is running and the cat is happy. All is well and I spend a few happy minutes stroking him as he purrs and eats biscuits. Then I drive to our other branch where they have a dog with vomiting and diarrhoea, which luckily had not neither vomited nor been to the toilet since I last checked. The treatment is obviously working. I feed him a very small amount of bland food and wait around for half an hour to make sure he doesn’t feel sick.
Ten thirty. In general calls after midnight are rarer. I am never sure what is best, to stay up a little bit later to minimise the chance of disturbed sleep, or whether to just take my chances and get some sleep while I can. I decide to go with the second option. After all, I have to work from 9am until 7pm tomorrow. It is a common misconception that most vets work a day shift or a night shift, but this is not the way on call works in my practice. We do run our own out-of-hours service, rather than contracting it out to a different company. In my opinion this has huge benefits for our patients. In-patients don’t have to be moved to a central practice every night. It also means that most clients will get to speak to someone they know and who has access to their pet’s full medical history. The down side is a client ringing in the middle of the night is waking us up and the next day can be long and tough if it has been a sleepless night.
For genuine emergencies we don’t mind at all (as long as people can bare with the groggy ‘hello’ as we answer the phone). However, some calls in the middle of the night can be testing. My particular favourite, at 3am was: ‘There is a rat in my garden’ – followed, after an unanswered pause, by: ‘It seems friendly’. It is also surprising how many calls we get at unsociable hours about fleas. My message to all the readers is please, please call with any concerns you have about your pet, but if it is to inform someone of a rat in the garden, to book an appointment or to buy flea treatment. Please think of the shift we have to work the next day.
This night is relatively kind. The phone is quiet until six thirty. A local taxi driver has found a cat that has been hit by a car. It isn’t too seriously hurt but needs checking out. The injuries are minor (some bruising around the face and a few broken claws). Luckily she has a microchip so the owner is called and reunited.
Just time for a shower and breakfast before morning surgery…
Laura Frost MRCVS MA VetMB is a vet at local veterinary practice Pengelly and Mizen
Pengelly and Mizen Veterinary Surgeons 89-93 Park Road, Peterborough PE1 2TR T: 01733 554953 Emergencies only: 01733 896000
