The Raptured Spleen

21/06/2024

25/05/2024

Sorry we've been quiet for a while, bit busy with the day job.
If anyone's still awake though, you might like this one...😉
Any other suggestions for tunes to help that night shift pass more swiftly?

30/03/2024

Morning Vet World. Here's a little reminder that what you do makes a big, big difference, and not just to your patients...

Any vet could write this, and about any, each and every week of their career I'll bet.; but most often it does not get mentioned, and can't be shared or understood. And if I might shed a tear whilst I type this, remember these words aren't just mine, they belong to everyone in this profession of ours who will all feel the same as they read. And every vet, vet nurse, receptionist, student - any colleague amongst our whole team who share a practice staff room will recognise their place in this tale, many, many times over - be it a different place, different pet, different name, this story remains ever the same. Here goes:

You were sat very quietly in the corner of the waiting room, head tilted down to the greyhound entwined round your legs and chair. A picture of close companionship; both of an older generation, quietly dignified and by nature uncomplaining. I called both your names - pet's name, your surname- you both rose to your feet as one. And as I introduced myself, we shook hands in greeting; your eyes met mine and silently screamed a plea of hope.
In the few stoic steps towards the consult room door, the issue was plain to see; a right hind leg that could bear little load, with thigh muscle already thinning.
Just a few short weeks from first flawed step to this but already you'd noted some weight loss - you shared that part with a catch in your voice, you knew it was no small thing. Then, as I listened, and you released the flow of your concerns, like an unbearable burden sliding from your shoulders, you shared some more.
She was your wife's dog really; and it had been a year and a half since you lost her. It was a short statement that seemed to escape from you; coming at a little rush.

"It's just the two of us now, old girl"

The best I could manage was 'I'm very sorry to hear that, sir'. It really didn't feel like enough. The truth is my mind was already a few steps ahead - moving along a pathway that I wished would have other turnings or exits besides the one I felt loomed ahead.
I bent down and talked to her, explaining for you both what my fingers were finding. In the past you'd had another dog, different breed, similar signs, and a diagnosis treatable with surgery. It felt cruel to say the knee was stable, and to pull that rug of hope away from under your feet.
The silent wince as I felt round her hip echoed around the small room. There was little else wrong, no flaws in her lean and muscled form, a testament to your care.
I stood, and we spoke, and I saw you were ahead of me as I introduced an ugly word as gently as I could. Our possible diagnoses still include some alternatives, a likelihood is not for sure. Radiographs will guide us more but in outline we have some options; it's a personal decision which of these you choose and if any of those choices were wrong we wouldn't offer them; but what's right for one owner may be uncomfortable for another, and that is OK too. It's my job to let you know all your options, and I'm happy to help guide you too. That part of the discussion I've said many, many times before but its never an automatic flow; I know my words, however gently voiced, will feel like a pounding sledgehammer and so there's spaces and pauses, awaiting and detecting your permission to move on to the next.
Some formalities of paper and pen, a carefully written phone number; a guide of when we'll know more and a promise it will be me calling you soon. You knelt to give her a stroke and a pat; unfussy, undemonstrative but a truly sincere farewell.
Nurses and I worked together, a catheter gently placed, cradled once sleepy to take the pictures we needed.
We don't need to dwell on those radiographs, nor to name the condition involved. Its enough to say as the digital image scanned onto the screen, our shoulders all dropped as one.

The phone was just a few feet away but I waded slowly towards it; and flumped on the stool, paper sheet in hand. I checked the names, and actually your patient's gender too, before making the call. It may be irrelevant to this diagnosis but a slip at such a key time would convey a hurtful flippancy, and leave an unpleasant memory to linger. Its a small thing but actually a big thing, to ensure all language is respectfully correct.

There is a flow to any conversation; you'd clearly allowed yourself the return of a little hope at the outset, and it was my horrid task to quash it, as gently but clearly as I could. It's not time for cutesy euphemisms that may be misleading, but nor is it time for alienating 'medicalese'. Once the situation was clearly understood between us, and we moved on to your choices, you shared some more of your wife's passing, sadly a very difficult time.. You wanted no part of that for your pet, your resolve to honour her with a gentle and comfortable passing was resolute, admirable and courageous. Yes, courageous - as you were prepared to lose her precious company from your life sooner, in order that she might not suffer any further discomfort at all. You checked she was still asleep - indeed - and just said whilst it would be nice to have a last farewell, its her who comes first, so please, now. I thanked you for your decision; and yes, I would hope I'd have the same courage to do the same for my own.

We said farewell, and I shared the news with the team as I drew up the injection. That part ever so practiced, and we held her for you as the anaesthetic deepened to a final conclusion.

Later, you came to collect her and I met you at your car round the back. Incongruous 'thank yous' and handshake exchanged again; once more I articulated my respect for your courage, hoping that by that repetition and by quiet affirmation and eye contact that would become part of your lasting memories to carry with you once this day was past and gone. We carried her with stretcher and blankets to lay her in your car, just as you wished.
And as you turned away finally to get in the drivers seat I saw your chin slightly wobble then catch back, and honestly sir, I'm just amazed at your strength throughout.

I know these days and weeks ahead will be difficult; I just hope we've done everything we possibly can to make today and those days that await ahead even just a little easier to bear and endure.

Now, that's just one vet's story of one patient, in one day, at one practice. Very little of it involved clinical training or medical expertise. Most vets will have done the same, or very similar, most weeks if not most days.

In fact, each day will bring a collection of cases where humanity, empathy and care will be vital to an outcome that we can all take pride in; and as I said at the beginning, these words might be mine today but this story, albeit with slight differences, twists and turns, belongs to all of us in this profession.

It's not just your pet's care that your vet, and their practice colleagues, takes into their hands.

22/03/2024

She's done it with less then 2mins to spare! Go Jasmin Parris!

Just in time to cover Saturday morning surgery then...

17/03/2024

It's the Raptured Spleen CPD's Guide to Communication in the Consult Room Part I, and our keynote text today comes from Mr Richard Ashcroft of The Verve.
'And I'm a million different people, from one day to the next'
The ability to adapt our communication style, manner and content to the ears, needs and mood of our client as well as the clinical situation will improve our connection and therefore our effective communication.
If, however, we force detailed anatomical/pathological explanations on the squeamish, or conversely omit detail of a procedure from those who are deeply engaged and require understanding in order to comply; if we adopt a consistent delivery style of information regardless of whether our client is emotionally distraught or dispassionately analytical; if we engage with inappropriate casualness or unwelcome formality without noting our client's body language or responses - or the rest of the million different styles that our client's will best respond to - then our words will fall on stony ground and be ignored or, even worse, alienate and forge a chasm across the consult room table.
If, instead, we can adapt and relate to the person, patient and situation (both clinical and 'whole world') in front of us, then what might have been a Bittersweet day at best can flow like a Symphony...

10/03/2024

It's Mothers Day in the UK; and so appropriate to revisit one of our very favourite Spleeno characters in tribute to all the inspirational Vet Practice Wondermums out there. Hope you've all had the great day you deserve.

SPLEENO Practice Wondermum

This set is a universal upgrade that can be applied to Spleeno figures stocked in Vet Practices worldwide, in all teams. RVN Wondermum version is shown here.

Practice Wondermum comes with a deceptively capacious Bag, filled with accessories including snacks and storybooks (pictured); as well as: tissues and spare pair of shorts; bulging diary; phone, purse and keys (car, house, practice, garage, bikelock and at least 7 indeterminate); several pens and spare colouring paper; a bottle of calpol and a calamine lotion; some emergency biscuits and a packet of plasters; a satsuma of uncertain vintage; a set of batteries, a collection of precious acorns, conkers and pinecones from the trip to the park, six felt tip pens with five lids (!), two treasured homemade Mothers Day cards, some felt and wool for home makings, two school trip permissions slips (completed, must drop in), a half-used book of stamps, a heavily edited practice rota, three old shopping lists and one new one, a folding hairbrush,a pillgiver (no, for the cat!), the right hair bands, and one child's glove.
Always. Just. One. Glove.
Practice Wondermum has a constant anxious awareness about the time, and has a capability of judging the duration of any task, procedure, consultation, changing of clothes and travel time to ensure she is where she needs to be when she needs to be.
The Practice Wondermum set includes two young children ready to be collected, and comes with an immense organisational capability, a nagging feeling of guilt at not doing whatever she is currently not doing, and a compassionate, loving heart the size of Belgium.
She has already booked off the time to see her children's Christmas plays in December, and knows that there will be a tight turnaround afterwards on that day to make it to Cubs, so probably beans on toast or pasta for tea.
Practice Wondermum constantly feels that her children aren't getting enough of her attention, and worries deeply that she is letting them down.
Practice Wondermum's children all know that aside from looking after them, she also fixes sick animals and helps people. They burst with excitement at school when it's show and tell time, to say what their Mummy does, and they could not be prouder of her.
All of these children believe they have the Best Mum in the World, and not a single one is wrong.

***Visit and Like our page to meet more of the Spleeno Vet Centre team, and Follow the Vet Funny with The Raptured Spleen***

08/03/2024

Absolutely no need to alter BOAS testing and mobility scoring standards, say Judges, as they welcome this year's champion.

04/03/2024

Spleeno Vet Centre all LOVE their local Perfect Rep, Jo. What she doesn't know about kitting out a veterinary practice simply isn't worth knowing, and her positive, helpful, can-do attitude means she's felt absolutely part of the team throughout their latest new build.
Jo knows what fits where, which kit integrates together, AND how many you'll need, She's not constantly pushing to sell more product, and she's often got a suggestion of an alternative way of designing or fitting something, to make sure the team at Spleeno get exactly what they need. Always available at the end of a phone or on email, she makes sure delivery dates are met and effortlessly lifts worries away from the Spleeno design team. So much so that she becomes more of a project consultant than a supplier, and at completion she's itching to come in and see how the whole build has turned out.
The Perfect Rep Set comes with a quiet and understated 20years professional experience, an encyclopaedic knowledge of her catalogue, and a gentle, capable smile of encouragement. If you're lucky enough to have this set in your local toy store, make sure you snap it up quick!

01/03/2024

Twenty years ago, a late Saturday night for Sally Shadecaster meant the protest march had ended at the Union; drinking cider and black, smoking murky roll-ups, shouting a determination to smash capitalism at a Billy Bragg gig, then all rocking up back at the student house with a veggie kebab, cheesy chips, a litre of cheap red from the offy and a determination to see the dawn and kickstart this rotten bourgeois world afresh.

Now, a late Saturday night means Sally has finally wrestled her budget together to hit her ICVPS target; ramping up enough fees (for the third time this year) to crank another 3.5% turnover from the remaining herd of clients- got to keep the venture capitalists happy now! The forthcoming 'staff restructuring changes' will help extend the profit margin too - Sally learnt at the last regional meeting never to refer to Redundancies, when 'restructuring' sounds much less scary. It's a shame to lose a receptionist and a VCA, of course it is - because being the lowest paid, it'll only make a small spike in the figures, whereas if she could have winkled out the recent grad or a deputy head nurse or two, Sally could have got herself up into the highest CD bonus bracket for the quarter, no problem.

Sally's not daft - she's going to lead in her practice update email with the wonderful news from the Workplace Culture Director that each CD will be assigned a £25/head Mindfulness, Integration and Self-Discovery payment, to facilitate our inner journey to peace and calm. Then, she can mention the Variation of Contract update, as the newly extended evening consultation hours ('It's a sign of how succesful we are, how popular we've become') will mean early shifts now finish at 8pm, and late shifts... well, I'm not too sure they'll ever finish at all. Everyone's additional efforts ARE very much appreciated, of course, and I'm sure will be recognised in the next round of staff remuneration reviews, currently scheduled for third quarter of 2026.
Then, Sally will cover this most recent round of fee increases - the good news is, as its only three months since the last hike many clients won't have visited in-between and might not notice. Maybe.

Finally, a word about the Independent practice that's opened up - Sally won't acknowledge to herself just how jealous she is of their start-up, far easier to swerve her envy at their principled, efficient, lower-cost service and empowered, happy team into a nit-picking hatred and contempt. 'If everyone could make sure we batch clinical history requests together in groups of two dozen alphabetically each day, but don't click 'send' till Friday afternoon, just to annoy them and get our own back' concludes Sally.

The Sally Shadecaster, Clinical Director set comes wearing utterly shapeless Beige trousers, which the previously alternative fashion-conscious Sally now purchases from the workwear catalogue, appreciating their unbeatable practicality and value. Missing from the set is a bathroom mirror, as Sally took it down in a fit of self-loathing when the Special's 'Ghost Town' came on Radio Two yesterday evening.
The set does however include a pair of interchangeable faces for Sally, 'grumpy and tetchy' is reserved for her colleagues but the alternative 'simpering sycophant', is there ready for Monday's regional director meeting.

29/02/2024

If Mrs Poutsneer was an animal, she'd be a spitting horned cobra. If she was a vegetable, she'd be a cactus-thorned chilli with a scoville rating in the thousands. If she was a mineral, she'd be granite boulder doorstop that you just stubbed your little toe on, and you could swear you hear it chuckling through you agony.
She's not an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral - she's a person - so naturally she's a dog breeder.
She's the scourge of show-rings, online discussion groups and vet waiting rooms everywhere...
When numpties claim to have 'done their research' what they actually mean is they've found a crappy wordpress online hate page - MrsPoutsneer has her own template for them now - where our Paula has spewed moderately slanderous nonsense in comic sans, green font.
Mrs Poutsneer can summon a maelstrom of indignant rage at the drop of a hat, and unleash it unbridled - 'a piece of my mind will do them good' -so woe betide a blind/ignorant/bribed judge reaching for the wrong shade of rosette, or a young/ignorant/big pharma-biased vet for reminding of prescribing regulations.
With each successive capitulation she evoked from her previous vet practice - she'd been through several practice managers, breaking each one with a stream of entitled discount demands, trivial complaints; consult fee avoidance; and sundry other unpleasantnesses. Their final straw had come when she'd named a litter all for the latin names of trending herbaceous biennials at the Chelsea Flower Show, and one of their nurses received both verbal barrels straight from the Poutsneer tonsils for misgendering Dianthus Barbitus as female when CLEARLY it meant 'Sweet William'. Mrs Poutsneer was issued a sacking letter, registered delivery on a Friday evening, and they closed the practice on Saturday (for training).
So here Mrs Paula Poutsneer is, this fine Monday morning - she strode straight in to Spleeno Vet Centre's waiting room, Vespasian wandering off lead and c**king a c**k on the food display ("I do NOT require a lead, he will obey me completely, and I must say I agree with his opinion on that kibble rubbish you're foisting on people'). She brusquely informs Receptionist Rhonda Roundhouse that a clinical history request is wholly unnecessary, as she knows everything that is going on with Vespasian herself, and anyway she want the new vet to have a 'fresh start' and not just 'blindly follow' what the other lot said, as it's probably a load of tosh anyway.

Rhonda has seen Mrs Poutsneer's sort before, and in fact, as receptionists like to each share their own horror stories, her name is familiar too. Very sweetly, and apparently with sad regret, she informs Mrs Poutsneer that Spleeno Vet Centre had just closed their books to new registrations, an internal memo went out end of last week, so unfortunately she is unable to register Mrs Poutsneer, Vespasian, and the dozen other breed offences and aberations she wants taken into consideration; and therefore issuing the requested bottle of antibiotic, plus some ear and eye drops to use at her discretion (after all, few so-called veterinary professionals will know this breed as well as I do!) is absolutely not possible either.

Rhonda displays the compassionate resolve of a concrete bollard or a tidal breakwater as Mrs Poutsneer mounts a twenty minute indignant offensive; no, practice manager and practice owner aren't available to explain themselves; yes, practices can (and do) close their books at their discretion; no, Vespasian's hip score would not constitute a veterinary emergency, and yes, you do have to leave.

Finally, when the waiting room door closes behind her; and the last gusts of her Range Rover diesel fumes are drifting from the car park, all the rest of Spleeno Vet Centre's staff come cautiously through from the prep room, Flora Forthight RVN is clutching a fresh brew for Rhonda, and Head Nurse is bringing along the M&S biscuits. Practice Manager is already drafting the email for Rhonda's pay rise.

Set comes with a cluster of rosettes, a gormless looking dog, and a sense of latent hostility. Good luck!

24/01/2024

A gentle joke to commemorate a half-century for a great friend.
To be an accomplished veterinary surgeon, writer, humourist, adventurer - Gareth writes himself a New Year's Resolutions list every January, same stuff each time really, never seems to get any closer. Each passing year does however bring a new phase, some sort of fad with ever more expensive kit and a disturbing new reason to cram his middle-aged frame into Lycra. Recently, he's surpassed himself by adopting a unicycle and taking it to various places it manifestly wasn't designed to be. Such as creaking under his backside, for starters.
Gareth follows a fine tradition of supportive, dedicated and kind veterinary practitioners - much in the same way that a rubbish cart follows a royal parade, or a rat meanders after a trail of cake crumbs.
Throughout his somewhat sketchy academic career at Liverpool, Gareth's main aim was just to scrape past fifty. This morning, we can all help him blow out his candles as he's definitely done it; may you march on to the credit and distinction that you never deserved before but most certainly do now sir.
Gareth was daft enough to share with his friends and family his desire to have a characteristically quiet and undemonstrative celebration, so we thought only fitting to share his big day with over forty thousand of his professional colleagues amongst the Splenic Masses.
Fear not Gareth, the passing years barely show at all. All those decades, however - they've sure beat the hell out of you.
Happy Birthday mate.

22/01/2024

The much-prized Maggie Megabrain vet set is very highly collectable. They rarely become available, simply because anyone fortunate enough to have one in their team would never, ever part with them! In fact, the only person who DOESN'T think Maggie is a gold-plated superstar vet version is Maggie herself.

Maggie comes with a pair of Certificates, Medicine and Diagnostic Imaging, and she's already brewing another. Maggie can gently quote an obscure JSAP article from eight years ago to help a struggling colleague wrangle a difficult case, but in such a way that they think they've come up with the solution themselves. The Maggie Megabrain Vet Set shines in any room - consulting, prep, imaging, theatre - and staff room. She's first to the kettle for the brew round, knows what everyone likes and makes sure she includes the EMS vet student too. She can handle worried clients just as easily as an ultrasound probe or a CT scanner; all the nurses look forward to working with her and many quietly confide in her too. The reception team have never heard her voice raised, though she can be firm and clear whenever necessary. If you've got a problem and she can't solve it then she'll stick right by you till you find someone who can.
Maggie quietly sets the tone in any practice, as part of our Spleeno 'Role Model' collection: if you're very lucky she'll be upgraded to partner/director at your practice.

If you're fortunate enough to know a Maggie, let her know. She'll be a bit bewildered at all the fuss, of course... but that's just Maggie, and another of the reasons why we love her so.

31/12/2023

Happy New Year, !

24/12/2023

People step forward for duty over Xmas for many different reasons. It might be turn and turn about, they might look at others with young children and put them first, it might be a difficult time and they want to be busy. Whatever the reasons, what you do is hugely appreciated, and massively important, to your colleagues, and it is hugely, hugely appreciated.
Thanks all, and take care.