The purpose of the regulations is to protect practicing vets, the public and our companion animals.  This Board in my opinion fails that mandate in so many areas and when the chance arises to make meaningful changes, the board again fails both the public and our pets.

This Board does not even start with the most basic essential principle of providing care which is obtaining informed consent, ideally written informed consent, from the owner of the animal which is about to receive care from a student.

That this Board would allow a practicing vet who has been reprimanded by the Board to supervise students is not surprising.  This is the same Board that had a Board member who had twice been sanctioned by the board to be a participating member of the board and pass judgments over the care provided by other vets.  If this former board member could not conduct his own practice properly, how could the public have any confidence in his ability to pass judgments over another vet's standard of care?

How can the public have any confidence in the entire complaint process?  A pet owner files a complaint and the vet is allowed to see the complaint and respond.  The pet owner is not allowed to see the vet's response, which may contain inaccuracies.  An investigation is conducted, and the pet owner is not allowed to see the results of the investigation, which may and in my case (as verbally reported to me), did contain at least one inaccuracy.  And then the Board does not have an appeal process for the pet owner, but the vets are allowed an appeal process.  Is  that fair?  Is that transparent?

In my opinion, nothing will change that will help to protect the public and most important of all protect our animals, unless the Board is disbanded and a completely independent agency is created.  An agency that does not have active VA veterinarians on it and instead has retired vets or vets from out of state who do not practice in VA.

If significant changes and real transparency does not occur, VA will still have a standard of care that allows a vet to notice and document in the record that a kitten is non responsive 5 hours after surgery and the same vet does not check vital signs, does not check any lab work, does not call the owners, does not check the incision and then allows the kitten to die all alone overnight. The owner is never given the opportunity to make an informed decision to transfer the kitten to an overnight emergency vet for monitoring.   This is what this Board has determined is a reasonable standard of care for vets in VA.  (Anyone who wishes to review this kitten's record and the Board's response may contact me at mollymittens7@gmail.com).

The citizens and companion animals in VA deserve better than what this Board currently offers, in my opinion.

Respectfully submitted,

Molly Mittens Mom