An attentive pet owner can be sure that they are receiving the best health care for their pet by understanding the best practices in veterinary medicine and ensuring that their pet’s doctor is following them.
Does Your Veterinarian Use An Individual Record For Each Patient?
If you are the owner of multiple pets, it is important to be sure that each pet has its own medical record. Lumping all the pets together on one chart is considered to be a substandard practice and this shortcut can lead to confusion, putting all of your pets at risk.
A proper record of the health and history of each of your pets needs to be clearly noted on a chart which is dedicated to that pet only. Please keep in mind that many Veterinary offices will charge a small fee for this. Florida law allows Veterinarians to charge a service fee for a duplication of your pet’s records.
Usage of the large economy-size tanks indicates a preference on the part of the veterinarian to put profit ahead of the health of your pet. There are several reasons that a conscientious veterinarian will only use the single-dose bottles. Firstly, the single dose vials lessen the chance of `technician error’. Multi-dose tanks require the support staff to measure out the exact dosage for each patient. A slight human error in measurement could result in your pet receiving too much or too little of the vaccine.
Single dose rabies vaccines are also an essential record keeping tool. Each single-dose vaccine will come with a removable label which contains a vaccine serial number and LOT Number. In the event of a vaccine reaction, the veterinarian is able to quickly retrieve the vaccine data and properly communicate with the manufacturer.
Lastly, the presence of an individual serial number from a single-dose vaccine is the best way for you to know that your pet actually received the vaccine. While rare, there have been cases where unscrupulous veterinarians have watered down vaccines in order to increase profit margins. This would not be possible with the single dose vaccines, as each sticker must match up with a separate patient.