Surgical Comparisons

As with every procedure at Emerson Animal Hospital, your pet's comfort and safety is our primary concern.  Anesthesia and surgery can be the most stressful time and procedures for your pet; we do everything we can to minimize this stress and discomfort while employing the safest procedures possible.  We understand that cost is definitely a factor in choosing your pet's health care and want to be sure that you understand some of the differences between our hospital and the providers of low-cost care.

Proper pain control: We now know that pets experience pain in much the way that we do.  Proper pain control involves not only anesthesia but includes a variety of additional medications given for the sole purpose of relieving operative pain.  We use an average of four medications for pain alone for most procedures.  In addition, we send home pain medication for an average of 4 days after surgery.

Proper surgical suite: Our surgical suite is state of the art, with central oxygen supply and venting for the removal of waste anesthetic gas.  All of our surgeons are masked and gowned for surgeries.

New syringes: Believe it or not, there are no regulations preventing veterinary hospitals from reusing needles and syringes.  We would never consider reusing syringes or needles on your pet.

Precision Instruments: Our instruments are top of the line surgical instruments.  This means there is less chance of an instrument slipping and causing unnecessary blood loss during surgery.

Precision Suture Material: We use the strongest, best quality suture material available.  This allows us to bury our sutures, causing less chance of infection or of sutures pulling out.  In many cases, no suture removal is necessary as there are no external sutures visible. 

In more difficult cases, we utilize stainless steel venoclips for vessel ligation and stainless steel staples, just as are used in human hospitals, for preventing blood loss from severed vessels and closing skin incisions respectively. 

IV Catheters: At risk patients receiving deep general anesthesia have an IV catheter placed prior to anesthesia.  This allows us to administer medications more comfortably to your pet, and provides us access to a vein should an emergency arise during anesthesia.

Emergency Drugs: We keep a supply of the most advanced emergency drugs available, including synthetic blood products.  These are very expensive to keep on hand, but allow us to be more prepared in case a blood loss emergency arises.

Proper Monitoring: In addition to external monitors, we have a surgical assistant dedicated exclusively to monitoring anesthesia

Proper Anesthetics: We use Valium and Ketamine for anesthesia induction followed by Isoflurane for full anesthesia for most procedures; these are some of the most successful and safest anesthetic agents available.  Our newer anesthetics are much improved and far more effective than the older drugs.

Low Cost Care 

Do not hesitate to ask questions of your veterinary health care provider.  You have the right and responsibility to your pet to know what you are paying for. 

• Ask them if they use proper pain control, suture material and anesthetics.
• Ask if preanesthetic blood tests will be done to ensure the safety of your pet and it's ability to do well under anesthesia.  
• Ask if they reuse syringes and have blood products such as Oxyglobin on hand. 
• Ask if they use proper surgery attire, including sterile gown. 
• Ask if they have a surgical assistant dedicated to monitoring their pet during surgery. 
• Ask if your pet will have an IV catheter, and will have pain medications sent home. 
• All of these are expensive, some of the materials we use are 10 times more expensive than the cheaper ones.  These things may or may not be important to you, but they are important to your pet and to our standard of care. 
• If you decide to have your pet's surgery elsewhere, the cheapest place is a subsidized spay/neuter clinic.  One is the Animal Birth Control Center of Waco.  Their phone number is 254-776-7303.  They are open only on certain days and are not available should problems arise.  You may ask them to refer your pet to us should any problems occur. 
• If you do decide to have your pet's surgery done elsewhere, we will be happy to provide for the remainder of your pet's health care. However, we sincerely hope you decide on us for your pet's health care needs, including surgery.