Family Vet “Just Like Home”

Family Veterinary Clinic’s New Home is Now Open!

Crofton, Gambrills and Bowie, thank you for allowing us to serve you for twenty seven years. In that time we have been known as the vet clinic “in the house”, now it is our pleasure to introduce our new home. After much consideration for your ideas and concerns we believe that our new home will mix all of the “feel” that you have come to expect with all of the technology your loved ones deserve. The pictures say it all, a state of the art facility wrapped in the arms of a home. Enjoy!

At Family Veterinary Clinic, we take surgery very seriously.  Our veterinarians have thirty years combined experience, fifteen serving the Crofton, Gambrills and Bowie areas. Both have extensive knowledge and skill in spays, neuters, cesarean section, cystotomy, exploratory laparotomy, resection and anastomosis, minor reconstruction, digit amputation, mass removals, tail docking/declawing, and eye surgeries.  In addition to our primary veterinarians we also employ the services of Dr. Marilyn Kostolich a, Board Certified, surgeon who performs many other more complex surgeries e.g. ACL repairs. All of these surgeries are performed in our “state of the art” facility, outfitted with the latest surgical equipment.

Anyone considering having surgery performed on their loved one is faced with a daunting amount of information.  Whether it comes from their veterinarian, an online source or friends who have had similar procedures, it can be confusing and sometimes even scary. The following are just a few guidelines when considering having a procedure done.

• Be educated about the procedure.

There are plenty of resources to familiarize you with the procedure prior to having it performed.  Ask your veterinarian to explain what they will be doing. They should be willing to go over it in as much detail as you like. Go to reputable web-sites, such as ones sponsored by universities. (Click Here)

• Make sure the veterinarian is qualified and experienced in performing the procedure.

Like their human counterparts, veterinarians have become specialized, from general practitioners that you see every year to specialists that only work in one area.  Just as with human medicine, it is important to get the right doctor and although most veterinarians are capable of performing surgeries such as spays and neuters it is a good idea to have a ”Board Certified Surgeon” perform more complicated ones such as orthopedic repairs. (What is a Board Certified Surgeon?)

• “Cleanliness is next to godliness”, as the saying goes, is true when referring to surgery than at any other time.

This old proverb could be expanded to say, “A clean, well equipped and maintained surgery is next to godliness”. When general anesthesia is administered every measure should be taken, both pre and post operative, to increase the chances of a positive outcome. Most of the surgeries performed by your veterinarian call for general anesthesia. As is with the human medical field, there are standards and practices used to promote success. The veterinary field has adopted most of these standards, look for these when making your selection.

1. Experienced, qualified surgeons whom regularly perform the surgery your pet needs. (keep in mind that some surgeons perform more than 25 surgeries per day, try to schedule your pet to be one of the first  or schedule with a facility that does not place as much load on their surgeons)
2. A well-equipped, dedicated surgery suite. “The only thing that should be in surgery is surgery”. A surgery suite is not a recovery, storage, or dental room. At a minimum, it should contain monitors (pulse oximetry, respirations, temperature, ECG), heated surgery table, fluid warmer and pump, double lights, anesthesia machine with oxygen supply, and instrument table. At a maximum is should contain the same. (specialized procedures may call for additional equipment such as x-ray, ultrasound or endoscopy)
3. A clean, comfortable and heated recovery area. Heat loss during and after surgery is an important consideration; make sure the facility has a heat loss mitigation system, preferably heated recovery cages, that limit heat loss and keep patients safe while they overcome the effects of anesthesia. ( the floor, although sometimes necessary, is not ideal)
4. In-house lab.  As with humans, pets should have pre-operative blood work to check overall wellness and screen for conditions that could cause surgical complications
   

   Heated recovery cages

   

   Dedicated dental suite

   

   Full in-house lab

Digital X-Rays at FVC

FVC Introduces the first Digital X-Ray in Local Area Clinics

When pets are injured or ill, getting a fast, accurate X-ray is often essential in developing a proper diagnosis and course of treatment. State-of-the-art digital X-ray machines, used in human medicine for 10 years, help facilitate expedited treatment. Family Veterinary Clinic is proud to be the only clinic in the area to now have such a device on-site and in operation. FVC recently installed a Fujifilm FCR XC-1 unit, which has now become the workhorse of our radiology area.

This new digital X-ray can produce images in seconds and does not require films to be developed. Since the unit is so fast, waiting times are reduced in general. In addition, if an animal has moved during an exposure the operator knows this quickly and can take another image right away.

In choosing this Fujifilm unit, speed was not the primary concern. The quality of the images was paramount to the veterinarians at FVC. The new digital X-ray takes very high-resolution digital images.
The images can be zoomed in and out, and other features such as contrast can be adjusted to improve the view to aid the veterinarian in diagnosis. The digital X-ray offers other features not available with conventional technologies, such as the enhancement of different sized tissues in the same image and the suppression of noise, providing unprecedented image clarity.

Record storage and retrieval has always been a chore in the vetrinary field. With this new digital X-ray unit, the image data can be saved and backed up, making it available to the FVC veterinarians for later use at the push of a button.