Kidsplanation: A Fun Dive into Veterinary Basics with Dr. Sugerman and Oren
In this insightful Vetsplanation, we delve into a special episode of the Vetsplanation podcast, where Dr. Sugerman and his son Oren explore the basics of veterinary medicine in a fun and educational way. Discover the role of a veterinarian, the various types of veterinary professionals, the fast-paced clinic environment, and the day-to-day life of an emergency veterinarian. Join us as we break down the key takeaways from this enlightening Kidsplanation session.
What You’ll Learn:
Discover what a veterinarian truly is and their essential role in animal care.
Understand the various types of veterinarians, including emergency vets, researchers, and more.
Gain insights into the daily life of a veterinarian, from diagnosing to surgery and client interactions.
Learn about the fast-paced nature of emergency veterinary work and its demands.
Appreciate the dedication of veterinarians in keeping pets safe, healthy, and loved.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"It's not just playing with animals, I have to do a lot of talking to owners and writing my charts." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman
"Even with general practice veterinarians, they do go and examine the pet... but a lot of the other treatments and stuff, their technicians do." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman
Watch On YouTube:
Read The Transcript:
Tyler: [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 to another episode of vetsplanation. Today we're actually going to do something a little bit [00:01:00] different. So this is my son Oren. I think he is one of my number one fans. And he suggested that we do something called Kidsplanation, where it was shorter things that are talking about easier to comprehend things.
So things that you want to know about the basics of veterinary medicine. You want to say hi, Oren?
Oren: Hi.
Tyler: Alright, what questions do you have for me, buddy?
Oren: First of all, what is a veterinarian?
Tyler: Yeah, that's a really good basic question, right? If you ask a lot of people, probably, what would your answer be? If I said, if I asked you, what is, what is a veterinarian, what would you say?
Oren: A person that is like a doctor to animals?
Tyler: Yeah, that's a great, great explanation of it, right? So there's lots of different variations of what a veterinarian is. Most people would say it's somebody who takes care of animals, right? But you said it correctly, like it is a doctor who takes care of animals.
People who take care of animals, there's tons of people, right? There are people who are breeders who take care of animals. There are people who take care of the horses, you know. There's people [00:02:00] who take care of animals in humane societies. So just taking care of animals is not really a good definition of it. But a doctor who takes care of animals is great because we actually have to go through a lot of schooling for this. I know that he doesn't remember a lot of the stuff that I had to go through but I had to go through your whole school that you're going through now, right?
Kindergarten through, what is it? You go through 5th grade and then 6th grade through through 9th grade and then 10th grade through 12th grade. I had to do all of those. Plus I had to do undergraduate work, meaning I had to go for four years. Mine actually was a lot longer than that, but for four years to get my bachelor's degree, and then I had to go for another four years to get my doctorate.
So he was born like while I was doing my veterinary medicine. So he got to learn a little bit about this while I was reading to him at night. But, you know, so we do that, but also it's not just taking care of animals. There's lots of different types of [00:03:00] veterinarians. What kind of veterinarian am I?
Oren: You're an emergency veterinarian?
Tyler: Yeah, so I'm an emergency veterinarian, so I deal with very specifically emergencies that come in. So if your pet is sick or injured , I'm the person you want to go see. But if there is things like you just want to do vaccines, those are what's called a general practice veterinarian. So they're doing things to just make sure your pet is well.
There are also veterinarians who don't touch animals at all. They actually do lots of studies on them, or they're doing research, or they're talking to you from poison control when there is a problem that your pets get into some sort of toxin, it can even be from like people who do nutrition for animals like they come and talk to us about like different types of animal nutrition.
There's lots and lots of different types of veterinarians. It's not just the types of veterinarians that people think about as just giving vaccines. There are huge variations of them. And do you know, do [00:04:00] I see every type of animal?
Oren: No, you mainly see dogs, cats.
Tyler: Mm hmm. Yeah, mostly dogs and cats, right? I do see some exotics, but that's another thing with veterinarians, is people think that we see all animals, and that's not true.
So I could work on them, I am licensed to work on any animal, but does that mean that I have that expertise?
Oren: No.
Tyler: No. If a horse came in, I probably wouldn't know what to do.
Oren: Yeah, you're allergic to horses. That's not a good situation.
Tyler: Yes. That would not be a good situation. Or if a cow came in, I wouldn't be as knowledgeable about cows as somebody who actually does bovine medicine, and that's cows.
All right. What other questions do you have for me?
Oren: How was it like to be a veterinarian?
Tyler: Yeah, that's a great question too. So from my perspective of being an emergency veterinarian, for me, it is a lot of [00:05:00] work, it is a lot of hours. So, you know that I do overnights, right? So my hours are usually from 6pm to 7a m. So it's, it's a long night and that's just, then I still have to do all my charts and stuff at home. So sometimes I don't go to sleep for a long time, huh? Just in the practice as a veterinarian, for me a lot of what I do is talking to the owners. That's another thing that people don't realize is they think that I just get to play with animals all day.
But that's not actually true. I have to do a lot of talking to owners and I have to do a lot of writing my charts and then I do some surgeries and I examine the pets. But my technicians do a lot of work too. You've met my technicians. A lot of them do a lot of the work. I tell them, I need them to do something.
They'll give injections or they'll give fluids to help rehydrate that pet. And then they go and do those things. So I'm mostly the person who does all the diagnosing and tells them what to do. [00:06:00] And then my technicians do a lot more with the pets as well.
Oren: So is that basically the opposite of what most people think?
Tyler: Yeah. Cause most people think that, especially for people who do general practice where you do a lot of vaccines and making sure the pet as well. They think that we go and all we get to do is like play with the puppies and play with the kittens and we give the vaccines and everybody's super happy.
And it's just there's really great times. But it's actually not the situation at all. Even with general practice veterinarians, they do go and we do examine them just like general practice does, I still examine the pet. The general practice veterinarian does do the vaccines, but a lot of the other treatments and stuff, their technicians do, and they still have to go back and write all the records and talk to the owners and do all these recommendations. So there's a lot more to it than just. We get to play with animals.
Oren: What is the environment of where you work as a veterinarian like?
Tyler: Yeah, so we [00:07:00] have an environment where we have I don't know if you've been into the clinic before, but we have a lot of kennels. So it's you know how like Hala's little kennel, so it's our little dog, she has a small kennel, right? We have a lot of kennels so that pets can be safely in those kennels and that way they're not gonna get hurt by other dogs, because maybe they see a little dog and that big dog wants to eat the little dog.
So we have to keep them very safe and separated from each other. We have to keep them in kennels so that way they can be safe. Same thing for the big dogs. The big dogs are kept in kennels as well. It's a temporary thing, they always have like nice bedding. They always have like water and food if they need it.
And our technicians are always around so that they can be watching them all the time. It's also for me because I'm an emergency veterinarian. It's very fast paced. So I have-
Oren: angry people sometimes
Tyler: Unfortunately, in veterinary medicine in emergency, especially, there are a lot of angry people. We have really long wait times, unfortunately, for emergency medicine, because there's a [00:08:00] lot of people who need emergency veterinarians, but there's not a ton of us around, especially at night.
So people do get angry, unfortunately, sometimes, but you know, the environment, we try to make it a happy environment with the technicians and the receptionists that are there. We try to make it as good of an environment as possible. We try to play soothing music so that way the pets are more comfortable.
We just try to make it as quiet as possible by keeping them in areas that are really quiet. But it's definitely a very fast paced environment. I'm like, go, go, go all the time.
Oren: You don't have, yeah, so fast that you don't have enough time to eat that toast.
Tyler: Yeah, yeah, most of the time I hardly have time to eat my lunch, for sure.
That's great questions, Oren. Any other questions?
Oren: No, that's, that's it.
Tyler: Okay, anything you want to say about doing KidSplanation?
Oren: I really hope that you, that you like this first episode of Kidsplanation.
Tyler: Yeah, I think it was a really great idea, buddy. All [00:09:00] right, so until next time, I hope you enjoyed this little Kidsplanation.
We will try to do some more of them as these topics come up. Alright, thank you guys have a great day.
Oren: Bye.
Tyler: Keep your pets happy safe and loved.
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, SUGGS@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.