Well, we’ve been in the new Sherborne practice premises on Sheeplands Lane for a couple of months now. If you have had occasion to visit us there, I’m sure you’ll agree the car parking is an improvement! If you have yet to visit us, you may be wondering what other practice improvements have been made.

Practice improvements – As you step inside

The easy access to reception and its division into cat-side and dog-side is helping to keep the peace. As some of you saw during our open day in July, the dispensary sits right behind the reception. Medicines are readily accessible to our receptionists, who also double as dispensers. Prescription medicines are checked by two people before they are handed out. The third check is equally important – that is done by you, the client and the owner. Mistakes can happen no matter how hard we try! The more checks and balances in place, the fewer get through the safety nets. So please do check the label on your pet’s medicine when you receive it. If anything looks wrong, don’t hesitate to tell the receptionist. In fact, if anything during your visit to us could have been better, please let us know.

As a nation, we are hesitant to make comments other than compliments. At the surgery, we welcome them, as it’s the only way to improve. If you prefer to email us, sherborne@newtonclarkevet.com is the one to use. Just to let you know, the telephone system is centralised. The receptionists book appointments at both sites so do make sure everyone knows where you want to go (and who you would like to see!).

Practice improvements – Equipment upgrade

Extra space in the car park and inside the building makes life easier for clients and staff. From a diagnostic viewpoint, the real improvement lies in two pieces of equipment; the CT scanner and the digital dental X-ray machine.

CT Scanner

Only in the last couple of weeks have we been doing proper CT scans on patients. The images are extraordinary! They are displayed in 3D and can be manipulated by the computer so that any structure can be viewed at any angle. Oliver Davidson, one of our younger vets who’s studying for his post-graduate qualification in surgery, is very excited about it. After he took me on a virtual journey down a dog’s ear canal and into the middle ear (an important structure that is poorly imaged by plain X-rays), I must say I was excited too.

Dental x-rays

As for dental X-rays, this also is a major step forward in diagnostics that brings better treatment. Anybody who’s been to their dentist will be familiar with the practice of routine dental X-rays. Every dentist’s chair is equipped with a machine. The really important bit for dogs and cats is the mandible, or jaw bone. It has a canal running through it carrying nerves and blood vessels. The roots of their lower teeth can extend down to almost touch this canal. This makes it vulnerable to damage during an extraction.

What’s more, the crusty brown deposit (tartar) that builds up on our pets’ teeth is not only unsightly and smelly, it causes gum infections. In turn, this can lead to bone loss around the tooth root. So we have the situation of a relatively massive tooth sitting in a weakened mandible! This means after the tooth’s extraction, there is almost nothing holding the jaw bone together. This all adds up to increasing the risk of a mandibular fracture.

Orthopaedic X-rays

Dental X-rays can tell us how much bone is left around a tooth. It helps us judge the risk of complications, like nerve damage or mandibular fractures. The size and shape of tooth roots is another important consideration as hooked roots make extraction much more difficult. Similar considerations are made by human dentists. It’s routine to take post-operative X-rays after orthopaedic procedures to check the position of surgical implants and to make sure bony alignment is correct. Dental surgery is no different and in fact is a form of orthopaedic surgery, requiring the same level of care. Furthermore, dental X-rays allow us to identify retained tooth roots and will help us to confirm that the roots of extracted teeth have been fully removed, as retained root fragments can cause problems in the future.

What’s next?

Like all new bits of tech, we are all wondering how we ever managed without them. Not sure what’s coming next, maybe a laparoscope to do keyhole surgery? Guess I’ll have to just wait and see…