A surgeon's approach to owner communication

When a client finds out that their pet needs surgery, it can be a scary start to the process for them. To help ease their nerves, Brian Sutherland, DVM, DACVS-SA, explained in this interview with dvm360, that he tries to be as transparent as possible with clients in order to make sure they understand the risks and benefits of these procedures.

Throughout the interview, Sutherland explains that he shares a risk-benefit analysis that he does for himself with clients to help them be fully informed, educating clients on high-risk and complex procedures, especially for those that may be rarely performed, to help veterinary professionals educate their clients to make the best decisions for their pets.

Below is a partial transcript

Brian Sutherland, DVM, DACVS-SA: I think my general approach is to be as open and honest as possible with owners. These are often challenging and sometimes high-risk procedures, and I think owners need to be very, very well educated on that. And a lot of times these procedures are things that aren't performed very often. And so despite someone being, you know, the most experienced, like my mentor in Colorado, one of the most experienced heart surgeons in the world for veterinary patients, still there are things that he has not done hundreds of, you know. So there are definitely certain procedures where we don't do that often and have less experience with and I think it's very important that we're...open and honest with owners about that, so that they don't have some, you know, notion that we have done hundreds and we know exactly what's going to happen and that sort of thing.

And so, as part of that, what I like to do with owners is go through that same risk-benefit analysis that I do for myself, and talk to them about what I think the benefits may be and what I think the risks might be, and then include them in that sort of discussion and thought process to whether or not they think they want their pet to have a procedure based on what they feel their pet's quality of life is, and what we think we can do to improve that quality of life with surgery. So I think the upshot is being open and honest and making sure they understand the risks.