Important Things in Medical Consultation

The purpose of medical consultation is to understand sickness in the context of someone’s life, drawing upon a broad range of approaches to awaken and support a person’s inner healing response. Health challenges impact many aspects of a person’s life, and many aspects of a person’s life can influence illness and the restoration of health. The success of any consultation depends on how well the patient and doctor communicate with each other. There is now firm evidence linking the quality of this communication to clinical outcomes.

Continue reading this post

Pet Pals, Veterinary Surgery Games animated 3D for Windows and Mac

The game does a good job of being matter-of-fact and professional, asking you to select the three most pertinent, professional questions to ask, handling injections, rectal temperatures, and stool samples with a minimum of fuss. It will present the cases with info on the normal pulse and temperature for that species, then ask the doctor if a particular reading is high, low, or normal.

The program takes about 15 minutes to install, but once installed, you don’t need to insert the CDs to play – something I really appreciate rather than expecting a child to handle the CDs (or having to take them on trips). Pet Pals is a great game to give to any youngster who loves animals or loves a more realistic game.

The cases seem well chosen to help educate about the care of the various species and to help compare and contrast appropriate care for different animals.

For example a rabbit with a hairball, and you could learned that rabbits cannot vomit, that hairballs are life-threatening, and that rabbits are poor surgical candidates. removed an abcess from an iguana in minor surgery, which was just the right amount of ‘icky’ to help get the feel of the real thing.  Details >>

Data Therm Veterinary Temperature Monitor

Features include; programmable high and low alarms, dual scale Fahrenheit or Celsius, memory recall for up to 70 readings, and flexible 2mm diameter x one meter long rectal probe with 25 covers( core temp). Weighing less than 2 ounces and battery operated, it is lightweight, portable and easy to use. Ideal for surgery, recovery, and intensive care. One year warranty.

The DataTherm Veterinary Temperature Monitor continuously monitors a patient’s body temperature and features a real time temperature display, updated every 4 seconds. A range of 62.6F to 113F temperatures makes it applicable for most species including exotics. Product by Paragon Medical. More info please go directly to Email: sales@paragonmed.com
800-780-5266 – Fax 954-340-2457

Dalmatian bladder stones caused by gene that regulates uric acid in humans

The discovery equips dog breeders with the tools to eliminate that trait from the Dalmatian breed and yields clues to the cause of similar problems in humans. The findings will be published Nov. 7 in the scientific journal Public Library of Science.

“This defect, which in dogs is peculiar to the entire Dalmatian breed, has been reported for nearly a century and was probably unintentionally introduced as breeders worked to select more distinctive spotting patterns,” said veterinary geneticist Danika Bannasch, lead author on the study.

“It is now possible that this trait can be removed from the breed by crossing Dalmatians with the normal offspring of the original Dalmatian-pointer breeding that occurred in the early 1970s,” she said.

By Dec. 1, the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory in UC Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine will begin offering DNA testing for the mutation in dogs to allow breeders to eliminate the trait. Information on the testing program will be available online at UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory

The researchers collected DNA samples as well as urine samples from hundreds of dogs to identify the gene responsible for high levels of uric acid. Genetic analysis of dogs that are a cross between pointers and Dalmatians revealed that gene to be SLC2A9, a gene that recently has been reported to be important in regulating uric acid levels in humans. DNA analysis showed that mutations in the SLC2A9 gene were responsible for the elevated uric acid in the Dalmatians.

The same mutations also were present in some bulldogs and black Russian terriers, breeds that are not known to be closely related to Dalmatians. This suggests that the gene mutation must be quite old, even predating formation of the Dalmatian breed. Alternatively, the mutation could have been introduced to those breeds by crosses between breeds, the researchers noted.

Because the gene mutation does not always occur in bulldogs and black Russian terriers, breeders can simply use genetic selection to eliminate the unhealthy trait from those breeds. In Dalmatians, however, the mutation occurs in all dogs, forcing breeders to look outside of the breed to correct the problem. Download the journal in PDF format

source:www.physorg.com