Well, its been 2+ long grueling years since COVID interrupted our lives. Many surprises came out of this crisis with the most surprising being how busy we got. There are many reasons for this with the most obvious being the increase in puppies and kittens we have seen. This is a national phenomena related to families being isolated at home. Other reasons include our improved abilities to communicate via telecommunications, a staff dedicated to serving our clients, and our willingness to take on new patients that were refused services elsewhere. Unlike many practices state and nation wide, we’ve worked diligently to continue to service our geographic area without interruption.
So, as the pandemic is hopefully being controlled, we’re following CDC recommendations and allowing people back into the building with certain restrictions in place. Visit our website or Facebook page to review the new paradigm (or check our Sarah's previous blog post regarding re-opening the hospital). It’s been a long 2 years since we’ve seen you face to face so I wanted to review some of the improvements we’ve made to better your pet’s care.
Our laboratory facilities have many additions and improvements. Our urinalysis are run on a machine eliminating human error and giving improved and accurate results. Likewise, we run our fecal tests on a robotic machine that utilizes artificial intelligence (and has the accuracy of a board certified parasitologist!). We’ve found many more positive fecal tests since bringing in this equipment. Manually under a microscope the average false negative fecal tests ran as high as 30%. Now we have 10% false readings at most. In addition, our little robotic friend is able to read and copy cytologies. They are then sent directly a pathologist and we have results usually within two hours. So, when I stick a needle in that lump and make a microscope slide, we get amazingly fast results. No longer do you wait anxiously for days for results.
Radiology: our X-ray machine has been replaced with a high definition unit giving us crystal clear images allowing for more accurate diagnosis.
Coming soon: Dental X-ray. Once installed we will be recommending annual imaging and cleaning starting at a year of age. Did you know that 40% of all dental disease occur below the gumline? Early diagnosis via radiology allows for earlier treatment. Our goal is to keep all your pet’s teeth healthy for a lifetime and avoid costly (and painful) extractions. Why start at a year of age? Because we can discover unerupted teeth, extranumerary (too many) teeth, dental cysts and other developmental problems.
Special antiviral air cleaners have been installed in our waiting room and exam rooms for everyone’s safety.
We really look forward to seeing everyone in person and remember (for now), masks up!
Dr. Jerry Miller, DVM
Practice Owner, Lifetime Pet Center