Advice for new exotic veterinarians

What should new avian veterinarians know when it comes to handling emergency cases? Lauren Thielen, DVM, DABVP (Avian Practice) spoke with dvm360 in late September 2024 to discuss her lectures presented at the Southwest Veterinary Symposium earlier this fall. In an earlier video, Thielen talked about one of the most common exotic animal medical emergencies—a non-eating rabbit, often mislabeled as gastrointestinal (GI) stasis.¹

Here, she offers advice to veterinarians who may be handling emergency cases with birds, providing guidance to those who may be new to the profession. In this video, Thielen advises veterinarians to begin with an observational exam and cautions these specialists against ‘over-diagnosing’ their patients.

Below is a partial transcript

Lauren Thielen, DVM, DABVP (Avian Practice): To always, you know, start with an observational exam. And the reason, [which is] what I kind of tell my students, is because sometimes birds are just so sick that you… pick them up to examine them, and…they could die in that moment.

So, my biggest advice is always do an observational exam. Understand how sick the bird is, and if you need to give it 20, 30 minutes, I can promise you, you not examining that bird for 30 minutes isn't the reason [the bird] died. You know, sometimes just allowing their stress levels to come down, maybe giving them some oxygen—allowing them to really kind of catch their breath. You know, get them warm… get them in a warming incubator to try to get them as stable as humanly possible, so when you do pick them up, do your exam in like 5 seconds, and just… get the highlights and put it right back down, I think that's the best advice I can give people that are kind of just starting to see birds; so that way you can kind of understand, you know, what level [you are] dealing with, so you can go at the pace that the bird needs.

Reference

1. Bautista-Alejandre A. The potential risks of diagnosing rabbits with GI stasis. dvm360. October 4, 2024. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://www.dvm360.com/view/the-potential-risks-of-diagnosing-rabbits-with-gi-stasis