Kidsplanation - The Vital Partnership: ER and General Practice Vets

In this episode of Vetsplanation, Dr. Sugerman and his son, Oren, provide an in-depth look into the roles of Emergency Room (ER) and General Practice (GP) veterinarians. Gain a clear understanding of how these professionals work together to ensure your pet's health and well-being. 

What You’ll Learn:

• A kid-friendly explanation of these veterinary roles in the "Kidsplanation" segment 

• The distinct roles and responsibilities of Emergency Room (ER) veterinarians.

• An inside look at the critical cases that ER vets handle, from pet emergencies to life-saving interventions.

• How General Practice (GP) veterinarians contribute to long-term pet health and wellness.

• Understanding when to visit the ER vet versus your GP vet for your pet's specific needs.

• The importance of a collaborative approach between ER and GP vets in providing comprehensive pet care.

• Real-life examples of pet cases and scenarios that highlight the differences between ER and GP veterinary care.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• "Our goal is to pretty much work together to try to make sure that this patient is seen promptly when it needs to be, and then handled for the rest of its life for whatever problem it is that we've diagnosed." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman

• “They do the vaccinations, they take in monthly checkups, but then in reality, they do more.” - Oren Sugerman-McGiffin

Watch On YouTube:

Read The Transcript:

Dr. Sugerman: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I'm going to teach you about veterinary medicine. In this podcast, we can dive deeper into the understanding of what our pets are going through and break down medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information. Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only.

This is not meant to be a diagnosis for your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things. Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options and different opinions.

The information I provide here is to help pet parents have a better understanding about their pets. If you like our podcast, please consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or just somebody else who has pets as well. Now, let's jump into this week's episode.

Hi, welcome back to another episode of Vetsplanation. I have my son here again, [00:01:00] Oren. He's going to be going back to school here soon.

So he really wanted to do another episode of Kidsplanation for everybody. Oren, you want to say hi? All right. So what was the topic that you picked for today's Kidsplanation, Oren?

Oren: ER and GP.

Dr. Sugerman: Awesome. All right. So let's start with what do you know what ER and GP stand for?

Oren: ER is emergency room and GP is general practice.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with ER since that's what I'm most familiar with. That's because I do ER, right? What does tell me what an ER veterinarian does.

Oren: They take the really critical cases and they work on those.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, that's what we do. Yeah. So on emergency medicines, we do a lot of different things.

Sometimes they're not critical things. Sometimes they're just really painful animals. But like our goal and emergency medicine is to see those animals that can't wait. So they're really sick. They are vomiting constantly. They're having really bad diarrhea. They're [00:02:00] not eating. They're really painful.

Things that you would potentially go to your ER for

Oren: a broken bone

Dr. Sugerman: like a broken bone. If you ate something you weren't supposed to, like a toxin, chocolate for the dogs, when we want to make them vomit, things like that, chocolate grapes. Exactly. Yeah. All of those things that we don't want them to be able to get into those are the things that we're going to be seeing them for.

So that way we can get them seen before they could potentially get in to see their general practice veterinarian. So a lot of what I do is trying to fix immediate problems. That can be a little bit hard because you'll have some people who come in for skin issues. And I'm not really good at that.

That's not what my forte is. I always tell people if this is something that you would go see your ER practice for, if, as a human, would you go to the ER for this? And if that's the case, then yes, then you should bring them in for it. But if it's not something you would go to the ER for you, That it probably isn't something that an ER [00:03:00] veterinarian is the best equipped to deal with that.

Oren: Okay, so what's probably like the dumbest case you've had to do because someone thought their pet was dying, it was not?

Dr. Sugerman: That's a hard one because it's not that it's dumb, right? It's that they... The pet parent sees that their pet is in pain or is really uncomfortable, and so they only see that they can't see that it's something that could potentially wait.

So I don't know that there's any like dumb cases from it. There's just things that. Could potentially have waited to see like their regular veterinarian rather than coming into an emergency room and waiting, 6, 8, 12 hours to be seen.

Okay.

Oren: ER is also crazy, right? Because sometimes people come in for their pet needs CPR, other times their pet just sneezed.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, sometimes they're just sneezing. We have something called reverse sneezing in veterinary medicine and you can listen to that on a different episode for a reverse sneezing, but [00:04:00] Yeah, sometimes they are just sneezing, but you wouldn't know it when they do it.

It's very dramatic and so it seems like their pet is choking. It's hard to know like when is it best to come in and what is it? When do you not need to come in? So like things like, sneezing is definitely going to be something that's going to wait before something like for another pet who's coming in that needs CPR or that needs emergency surgery or, has broken a bone or something that is life threatening is going to go first in emergency medicine.

Oren: So comparing a pet that I just got into a load of chocolate compared to a dog that like dislocated a paw still both are not good.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, both are not good, but we have to decide, both of those are probably not going to be a life threatening thing at that moment, but we still have to decide what gets seen 1st, the paw that something that's dislocated. That's painful. So they [00:05:00] definitely need pain medication versus the dog who ate a large amount of chocolate that can become very detrimental. That can become very bad. And so we want to make them vomit first. So a lot of times, like on my clinic, like we are bringing that pet in who has a that possibly dislocated paw giving them pain medication and then they're waiting to be seen and then i'm seeing the one that ate chocolate we're making them vomit and again after they vomited where they're waiting to be seen so that way like something is already happening with them but they still have to wait their turn because it's not something that's life threatening at this moment. Does that make sense?

Oren: Yeah so out of your entire career so far, what is the most critical case that you've seen so far?

Dr. Sugerman: I've seen a lot of critical cases. I've seen unfortunately like dogs that get hit by cars. Yeah. Yeah. Dogs that are bleeding into their belly or into their abdomen. There's a [00:06:00] lot of critical things. And I think the hard thing for people to understand is it's not like a first come first serve basis, or it's not meaning if you stand in line to the ice cream, at school or something, right? You're the next person who's in line is the next person who gets ice cream, right? But it's not like that. This is really it's based on who is the most critical as the one that goes first. If somebody was in line for ice cream, and then somebody in that ice cream line suddenly passes out.

Everybody's going to go over to the person who passed out. They're not going to keep continuing to hand out ice cream, right? So it's hard for people to understand sometimes because it's hard to see that some pet might be more critical than other pets.

Oren: They think their pet is really important. And that is true. Yeah,

Dr. Sugerman: it is true, right?

Oren: They love their pets. And they want to get it treated. Yeah. Yeah, they want to get it treated.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, they don't want to see their pet suffer or anything, right? So they want to get them help as fast as they possibly [00:07:00] can. That's also a very helpless thing for them because they don't, they can't do things to fix them, right?

They have to wait until we can see them.

Oren: That's the hard part.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, that is the hard part. There's no appointments for it. You can't come in at a scheduled time or anything. This is really just based on, just like going to a human ER, when you can be seen next based on how critical your pet is.

The other things to are like, you have to remember. So emergency veterinarians, a lot of us do surgery and stuff as well. So if there's something really critical that needs surgery, like we have to stop seeing all the other patients so that way we can do that critical emergency surgery before we can move on to do the ones that are not as critical.

Oren: What is the most, I don't know dangerous or something? Like, when you took in those exotic animals?

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, sometimes exotic animals can be dangerous. Not everybody on emergency sees exotic animals.

And it depends, even for me, what kind of exotic animals I will see. But,[00:08:00] sometimes the most dangerous ones are actually just the dogs that are really scared, and are really fearful, and want to bite you. Yeah.

Oren: Remember when you saw like the tiger or something?

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. That wasn't on emergency medicine though.

That was on one of my rotations for school

Oren: and then that ostrich

Dr. Sugerman: also at school.

Oren: Okay.

Dr. Sugerman: Alright good questions. Yeah. Should we talk about what general practice does?

Oren: General practice? Yeah.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. What do you think general practice does?

Oren: I think it's what most people think that veterinarians are unless that person has a veterinarian as a dad or they are a veterinarian or general practice specifically in the first place.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, so what do you think that they do?

Oren: They do the vaccinations, they take in I don't know, like monthly checkups, but then in reality, they do more.

Dr. Sugerman: Oh yeah, they do so much more. So I know I probably downplay sometimes [00:09:00] the things that they do because that's not what I do. I do emergency. But they do so much more. So they, if I have a dog that's very critical and I fixed it on ER, then I'm going to send them to the general practitioner or the GP veterinarian to help manage that case.

So I can fix things at that moment, but the person who does all of the managing, figuring out what medications that they need, what their long term plans are going to be, all of that is a general practice veterinarian. So they do a lot more. Sometimes some general practice veterinarians do surgeries that I don't do.

So there's even with veterinarians in general, there's so many things that we don't think about that veterinarians do. If you go to your pediatrician, first of all, like your pediatrician is very much like a general practice veterinarian. In the sense that you make an appointment and you go at that appointment time, right?

There's not usually like just walk in general practice appointments. Like you usually have to go in at a specific time. [00:10:00] You're seen at that time. You have a scheduled slot of time to be seen. But some general practice veterinarians also do things like surgery.

So they'll do orthopedic surgery, meaning surgeries on bones, which is not something that I would do. They do dentistry. So like you now have like your pediatrician does not do anything to fix your bones. If you were to break a bone, your pediatrician does not do things like fixing your teeth.

You go to a dentist to do those things, right? If you have something that's needs x rays, you have to go to another place in order to get x rays. Or if you need an ultrasound, you have to go to another place to do an ultrasound. But these are actually all things that we do mostly at the veterinary clinics.

There are definitely specialists who do other things like surgery, there are specialists who do dentistry, there are specialists who do eye things, but a lot of these things first happen in the veterinary clinic and most of the time with the general practitioners. And then they also do [00:11:00] vaccines and wellness checks like you were saying as well.

Oren: But for general practice, they see the, like the regular things, they do the checkups. So let's say a bunch of patients are coming in. How I understand it is the less severe ones are going to go to the general practice. The severe ones go to the ER and then the ER sends them back to general practice.

And general practice is going to help plan some for ER. So they're split half and half with what they need to do. General practice is just like the. More the, there's, is the planning part.

Dr. Sugerman: They do all the long term stuff. Like I do very immediate things to fix things right now. And then general practice does all the rest of those things.

It's like when you were saying like before yes, I get seen on ER and then we move it over to general practice. That's absolutely true. They don't really plan for us to see them again. That's their goal is they don't want the ER to have to see them again. I never want to have [00:12:00] an animal who has to come in for an emergency, right? But that just sometimes happens, unfortunately. So it's not that they're planning for them to come to ER, they just are planning to help them try to stay out of the ER.

Oren: Okay, so you both do your best to try to keep animals in there, but part of the general practice, part of ER is handing them over to general practice sometimes.

And so general, so it's ER, if this was like a graph, ER is the high part, it goes down to the low part for general practice, and then general practice, does it sometimes go vice versa?

Dr. Sugerman: It's a little bit hard to see the graph part of this, but it's just that we both work in conjunction with each other to try to make sure that the animal stays.

Healthy and safe, right? That's our goal. It just depends at what point in time they need each one. So if they're really sick, they're going to see ER. And if it's something that could wait let's say, maybe they're just [00:13:00] itchy or they're losing hair

Oren: Or the need like a vaccine.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, those are all things that can wait to be seen on general practice. General practitioners also do other things to like you'd asked me before about paperwork type things when we're talking before the podcast and they do actually do something called health certificates. I just did a podcast with Dr Z as well on this.

But, this is like things like to help them be able to travel to other places, ER veterinarians and general practitioner veterinarians all have to do tons and tons of paperwork, but most ER veterinarians do not do things like health certificates. That's something usually a general practitioner does.

So I do have extra paperwork type things that we don't do that they do.

Oren: So ER and general practice, they have to work in like a corresponding system. ER has their part, they take these. General practice has a part, they, take these. They cross over, general practice helps ER at this point. ER hands some things over to general [00:14:00] practice sometimes, and then, at that point, there's all the patients right there.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, our goal is to pretty much work together to try to make sure that this patient is seen promptly, when it needs to be, and then handled for the rest of its life. For whatever problem it is that we've diagnosed.

Oren: That's good.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah.

Thanks, Oren, for joining me again on Vetsplanation for now, our Kidsplanation, our second Kidsplanation, so I know you're going back to school soon, but hopefully...

Oren: It's going to be hard to do these episodes.

Dr. Sugerman: Yep, so hopefully maybe we'll do some when we're on school break, or maybe even we'll plan some more for next summer.

So if anybody has any... Any ideas on anything you would like us to talk about on Kidsplanation? And Oren always has a lot of questions for me, so you're welcome to email us to let us know, and we'd be happy to go over those for you. All right, anything else you want to say, buddy? [00:15:00]

Oren: I really hope you enjoyed our second episode of Kidsplanation.

Dr. Sugerman: Yeah.

All right. All right, thank you again, guys, and keep your pets happy, safe, and healthy. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you guys for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or you just want to say hi, you can email me at Suggs, S U G G S @ VetsplanationPodcast.com or visit the website at VetsplanationPodcast.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you back here next week.