The Yorkshire Vet: Why we all need life lessons and labels...

“No!” I exclaimed, “You should have been bathing her just twice a week!”

Seemingly, I had failed to provide clear and concise instructions. “There’s no wonder she’s so fluffy,” I added, unnecessarily.

Luckily, the excessive treatment was without serious consequence. Poppy was better, more bouffant and less scabby than she might otherwise have been and no harm was done. The miscommunication/misunderstanding had been time consuming for her owner, but nothing worse. Whilst laughing over the frequency of the bathing, I recounted to Poppy’s owner some other mistaken treatments I’d come across over the years.

There is a frequent misunderstanding over the phrase, use [this medicated liquid] to bathe the area. Bathe, to me, means “dab the area with cotton wool, moistened with the medication”. It doesn’t mean, “submerge the whole creature in the medicated liquid, as if it was having a bath or being baptised.” The poor kittens in question were unnecessarily dunked, like a digestive biscuit in a cup of tea!

There was once a time when a client called the surgery to ask for advice about a pet goat, called Kneepads. He’d broken into the food store and eaten a week’s worth of food in one afternoon. The goat had taken on the appearance of a barrel and his abdomen was becoming more distended by the minute. I overheard my colleague giving instructions on how to mix up a remedy with which to drench said goat. In veterinary parlance, “drenching” means dosing a farm animal by mouth with a liquid by pouring it into its mouth. Unfortunately, Kneepad’s owner was not familiar with this terminology.

An hour or so later, another phone call to the practice came through. “I’ve done as you said and I’ve poured the liquid all over Kneepads. He’s soaking wet but still seems to be in some pain.”

My colleague rolled her eyes and went off to see the distended goat. Happily, the outcome was also fine.

And there is another, classic, mix up over instructions written on a label. Nobody knows whether this is an accurate anecdote, or an urban myth; or whether it was a story of a human- being returning to the doctor’s surgery or the pharmacist or a chap at the vets with his dog. Either way, it’s funny and worthy of recounting in this context. A patient (dog or human, nobody knows) was suffering with a bad ear infection. It was causing pain and some head shaking and ear scratching (I’m assuming that part, if the case was a dog). The right ear was certainly red and inflamed, painful and sore. The physician prescribed a course of ear drops to be applied to the right ear twice daily. Unfortunately, haste, or a lack of space on the label, had intervened and the prescriber had abbreviated the instructions to say, apply to the R ear twice daily.

After a week, the person/dog was back, rather annoyed that the treatment had not worked. The sore right ear was no better.

“I’ve been putting these drops up my bum [the dog’s bum] twice a day and my ear [his ear] is no better.”

I can imagine it’s true and, as with my mix up with Poppy’s baths, reminds us of the constant need for and importance of clarity of instruction. On labels and also in life.