Memories

Ioana's loss brought back memories. And they were not great memories.

Memories from University. The famous Uni from Bucharest, where our horse vet chief surgeon, still preached about the benefits of firing horse tendons, when the rest of Europe had already banished it by law and classified it as animal cruelty.

The time when we were sneaking in as students trying to give a very dehydrated horse, lodged in the large animal hospital, more then the prescribed 1 L of IV fluids. One whole litre!!!

I could dig back dozens of such memories. I could also dig back the endless amount of unnecessary information, from the 60's if not sooner, that we had to memorize as students.

I could remember the times when I watched in amazement how, in the small animal clinic surgery, the reputed ortho surgeon repairs a fracture without gloves. "I can't feel the structures just the same with gloves" was the running excuse. Hello??? This is not like wearing a condom, optional! Performing surgical acts with sterile gloves on is mandatory nowadays!

Or speaking on his mobile during surgery, closes the phone and then goes back into surgery. For the next surgery, the same instruments were sprayed with alchool a few times, and reused again without blinking. And all these in the main teaching institution, that should set a good example to everybody else.

I used to feel guilty for not spending time in the university's clinics and see "practice". Another "rebel" vet colleague, who is probably abroad as well now, told me once "I don't want to hang around, just in case I get some bad habits". Too right!

Still, while a student, I never really comprehend the full extend of the lack of professionalism and diagnostic errors that occur in veterinary practice in Romania. I had a vague idea, thinking that even for the most reputed clinician, lacking lab tests, X-rays, cages to keep animals hospitalized, etc., life would be pretty impossible.

And then I finally graduated, and found an opportunity to work abroad in a vet practice abroad. It was in Cyprus, the influence was very British in the practice...and that's when everything started for me personally; it wasn't anything by any stretch of imagination extraordinary, just a regular small animal practice at European standards. I learned in the first year there more about small animal practice then in the whole years spent in the university. It wasn't easy, but before every new surgery I would see the next day, I got books at home and red in advance. And by books, I mean updated, large, reputed small animal textbooks,....not the leaflet i received in university as my small animal surgery book.

After a year and a half spent abroad, I decided to return and practice in Romania. That's when it hit me, the huge gap between what could be and what really is happening.

I watched my colleagues doing surgeries on half awake animals (full deep anesthesia is very dangerous). I watched everybody taking surgical instruments off the shelf, rinsing them in alcohol, if that much, and getting to surgery. I watched very simple and basic ideas of surgery being slayed, just as plain skin closure techniques, that in view of most Romanian vets, need to be done with the thickest suture available and as tight as possible "to hold well".

I also saw the other side, of being employed in a small animal practice and getting a salary of 400$ monthly...and sometimes not getting that at all.

I saw, in 2007!, 2 great value products being used on animals...tarantula venom that is meant to help in localising the abscesses, and moth ball powder sticked onto fresh wounds to keep parasites away. I saw many medieval concepts. I also saw it's a battle to change the old ways, and certainly, should I ever feel like changing the ways and opening a practice in Romania, it would have to be either on my own, or together with some other open minded other vets with some years of experience of practising abroad.

Because a sad reality is...Ioana speaks about referring the cases. Well, my sad Romanian conclusion is ...apart from 2 places I could think of where I would refer my animal in Romania, (and both of them away from Bucharest), all else is silence. One is a vet that moved out from Israel, and has a practice in Arad. The other one is our very own Ricky, that despite just having started the practice 6 months ago, is growing it into a nicely equipped practice, and compensates with his solid theory knowledge all else. They both lack something essential thou...a serious Romanian lab for accurate hormone dosing, biopsies, cultures. I mean, seriously. Where would you sent a thyroid panel in Romania?? And mostly, how many Romanian vets would see the necessity of the exam?

Anyway, sad but true, the romanian reality in vet medicine is very sad. I think there are some very big hearted people out there. But the lack of proper training, the "books are written from books" concept and the complete lack of basic equipment leads to some serious errors.... and I hardly see things changing anytime soon.