Handling heart murmurs during physical exams

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During his lecture, 'Don’t Skip a Beat: Anesthesia for Cardiac Patients Made Easy,' at our most recent conference Fetch Kansas City, Gianluca Bini, DVM, MRCVS, DACVAA, discussed with attendees how to manage cardiac patients that were under anesthesia, and what veterinary professionals should do if they hear a heart murmur.

In this post conference interview with Bini, he explains the steps that veterinary professionals should take if they hear a heart murmur during their patients' physical exam, and what teams can do if certain equipment is not available to them when dealing with a patient like this.

Below is a partial transcript

Gianluca Bini, DVM, MRCVS, DACVAA: So of course, you're going to look at the whole picture between you know what to get on your physical exam. And of course, like, you know, breed, age, species and that can give you a sort of a hand of what could be. Of course, the gold standard is always to perform an echo. And so refer to a cardiologist or somebody that could [perform] an echo. In reality, of course, some clients can afford that. Some clients can't afford that. And so, you know, although this is the ideal, we don't always have the luxury of having an echo available for us.

Even just starting with what breeds and age and species, of course, that gives you a pretty good hand of what [it] could be. Of course, it will not tell you that it's a better thing sometimes. But you know, that gives you a pretty good idea.