Can you pass 'minimum information' test?

Thought for the month: Be the change you wish to see in this world-it is contagious.

What better way to whet the continuing education appetite than with a quiz?

The last quiz appearing in this column created a bit of a stir because along with it came a challenge: that all veterinarians pass an open book, "minimum information test" to receive annual license renewal. What would this accomplish? For one thing, public credibility.

The idea of recertifying is alive, active and well and a mission of our sister profession human medicine. How would you like to have a cardiac surgeon working on you who could not pass a simple open book "minimum information test"?

Many e-mailed, wrote letters, and called after the last test. Many endorsed the idea of a "minimum information test" instead of the mandated continuing education hours that we all know are a joke; those that most need it typically sign in and then go play golf.

No tricks

The idea of a minimum information test is simple, and any issue that is routinely presented in a traditional clinical practice is fair game. So there are no tricks with these questions-these are issues we all see all the time.

So here we go again. The following 25 questions have been taken from the Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine by Ettinger & Feldman. All the answers are on page 32, and the text page location of the answer is also provided.

Scoring: Since it is an open book test, give yourself 5 percentage points for each correct answer.

A to those who get 90 percent and better.

B to those who get 80 percent and better.

C to those who get 70 percent and better.

And to those getting less than 70 percent, forget going to CE courses -except to get the hours for the license-read five pages a day for the next 400 days of the text above and you, too, will get 90 percent or better.

Quiz

1. Pain is initiated by the stimulation of __________________.

2. Griseofulvin is a fungistatic drug that is water soluable best absorbed with a high carbohydrate meal.

True or false?

3. Urine protein/creatinine ratios are now routinely accepted as accurate and reproducible methods of determining normal or abnormal urine protein content. The generally accepted abnormal ratio is greater than _______________ in the dog and __________________ in the cat.

4. Analysis of the pleural fluid often provides the most important diagnostic clue diagnosing the cause of pleural effusion. Fluid samples obtained should be placed in an EDTA tube for biochemical analysis of triglycerides or cholesterol concentrations.

True or false?

5. Coagulopathies commonly cause epistaxis through defects of platelet number or platelet function or, rarely, from decreased concentrations of coagulation factors.

True or false?

6. Anaerobic bacteria isolated from dogs and cats include bacteroides, peptostretococcus, fusobacterium, and porphyromonas. Ordinarily, most anaerobics are susceptible to penicillins while the fluroquinolones are not effective.

True or false?

7. Extra Credit

In considering blood transfusion medicine, these breeds of cats are 100 percent Type A. ________________

8. In the chronic disease, E. canis can induce a severe protein-losing enteropathy most likely due to immune complexes.

True or false?

9. Feline parvovirus infection commonly affects young, unvaccinated cats and viral effects on the bone marrow cause a severe panleukopenia.

True or false?

10. Hypervitaminosis A of cats is characterized by extensive confluent exostosis that is most prominent in the cervical and thoracic spine. When taking the medical history of these affected cats it is found that the cat is eating excessive amounts of?

11. Heart failure is a clinical syndrome in which impaired pumping decreases ventricular ejection and impedes venous return.

True or false?

12. Subaortic stenosis is the most common congenital cardiac malformation in large breed dogs. The murmur produced is heard best on the left side at the top center 12 o'clock position of the three valves best heard on the left side.

True or false?

13. Seventy to 80 percent of cardiac diseases involve _______________ .

14. Antiarrhrythmic drugs are multiple, complex and challenge our memory. The favored, drug of the Class IV category is _______________ and works by _____________________.

15. Pulmonary valve insufficiency, silent to auscultation, is normal and is encountered in 80 percent or more of normal dogs examined by pulse wave Doppler.

True or false?

16. Inflammatory polyps of the middle ear of the cat are removed with surgical excision.

True or false?

17. Pulmonary hypertension is defined as increased pulmonary arterial pressure; in humans that would be greater than 25mmHg. In veterinary medicine this condition is underrepresented among primary diagnoses of cardiac and lung issues.

True or false?

18. The adult dog has 42 permanent teeth in the following sequence; I3/3,C1/C1, PM4/4 and M3/2.

True or false?

19. Chronic vomiting in the cat is problematic. Physaloptera is most easily differentiated from suspected Ollulanus tricuspis by the endoscopic recognition of the 1 to 4 mm Physaloptera adult and the smallish, 1mm, if at all identifiable Ollulanus, and its easy treatment with pyrantel.

True or false?

20. A perineal hernia is a retroperitoneum sac that protrudes through the weakened musculature of the pelvic diaphragm.

True or false?

21. This NSAID has garnered public attention because it is known to cause acute hepatic related disease ________________.

22. In the dog, this test is both sensitive and specific for the diagnosis of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency _______________.

23. When identifying Cushing's suspects, this test is simple, convenient, sensitive but not specific for Cushing's making it a nice screening test ________________.

24. In the bitch, ovulation takes place 48 hours after the surge of progesterone, and for those interested, ovulation can be viewed with the ultrasound.

True or false?

25. An advantage of ultrasound is its ability to distinguish between renal capsule, cortex, medulla, pelvic diverticula, and renal sinus. The normal kidney is more hypo-echogenic than the spleen making the differentiation of hyperechogenic ethylene glycol poisoned kidneys simple.

True or false?

26. A young pup with a portovascular anomaly is likely to have this type of urolith ___________________.

--Answers on the next page--

Answers to quiz starting on page 28

• Nociceptors, page 20

• False. It is not water soluable and is best absorbed with a high fat meal, page 49.

• 1.0 & 0.7, page 100

• False. EDTA for cell counts and clot tube for triglycerides and cholesterol, page 188

• 5. True, page 213

• 6. True, page 305

• 7. Tonkinese, Siamese, Burmese page 349

• 8. False, nephropathy 404

• 9. True, page 444

• 10. Liver, page 630

• 11. True, page 672

• 12. True, page 768

• 13. The mitral valve, page 787

• 14. Diltiazem, calcium channel blockade, page 830

• 15. True, page 871

• 16. True, page 999

• 17. False. It is almost always seen as a secondary problem, page 1080.

• 18. False. The molars are M2/3, page 1122

• 19. True, page 1164

• 20. False. It is a peritoneum-lined sac, page 1259.

• 21. Carprofen, page 1308

• 22. Typsin-like immunoreactivity, page 1359.

• 23. Urine cortisol-creatinine ratio, page 1469.

• 24. False. Ovulation takes place 48 hours after the LH surge The author threw in the ultrasound comment, page 1576.

• 25. True, page 1612

• 26. Ammonium urate, page 1772.