That explanation makes your trainer’s actions worse IMO. If your friend gets squirrelly listening to conflicting advice from random boarders the trainer should be encouraging her to listen to, trust, and follow the advice of her chosen professionals. For health care that’s the vet’s area of expertise. Just as your friend should listen to the trainer on riding issues.
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Interestingly, one of my friends (and former fellow boarders) was in this situation recently. She also was young and new to horses, and she and her family bought the horse from the trainer and trusted her implicitly. IMO, they misplaced their trust in this person and were truly taken advantage of–I saw the x-rays for this particular horse and they were gnarly. I was personally livid on behalf of the client–they were sold a broken horse and then taken advantage of for a year by said trainer, who kept this horse in their program and also used it in lessons for a year.
This trainer also would 100% use this logic if asked about the situation:
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I guess the question is whether you think trainer trusts your maturity and expertise enough to be straight with you regarding your pony or whether she will also decide that she knows better than you if any issues come up.
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Sadly some trainers are of the opinion that they are not only smarter than their boarder, but also smarter than the veterinarian, particularly if not a familiar one.
The trainer has a duty to relay messages verbatim without interpretation to suit them.
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So, I think that we might actually be talking about the same horse here, a warmblood gelding, and more information might be helpful: the horse went lame after a strenuous trip off property and the diagnostics showed advanced navicular changes and a (not recent) broken coffin bone.
I think it still depends entirely on what the vet said, and what the trainer said. If the vet said “I want more imaging on this horse” then filtering that out is wrong. If the vet said “well, jeez…you know it’s hard to say without more diagnostics. It could be just [an abscess or whatever] so giving it a little time can make a big difference without spending thousands…it’s not unreasonable to give it a couple of weeks and see” that’s really different.
What did the vet say?
Also curious - what is actually wrong with the horse?
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The question is being presented as a false binary: either 1) leave the horse in Trainer’s care with absolutely zero input / information about its health, or 2) remove the horse from Trainer’s program.
But there’s a middle ground, where you can monitor horse’s health from afar by staying involved in all vetting conversations. Ask a friend take a video of horse. Or fly/drive out there yourself every couple of months – couple hundred bucks in airfare is not absurd amount to pay for peace of mind.
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I am still confused by something here - does this vet not provide reports of service? They have to be making notes into whatever computer system they use for their record keeping. I would think the vet’s thoughts on the situation would be included and easily provided to owners who are not present at the time of treatment. Why is the owner not getting a report along with their bill?
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You never know… I have to pull teeth to get any information from vet or farrier for the hunter pony we lease. The lease agreement was contingent on the horse being in the trainer’s program, trainer has vet & farrier they use, it’s set up on trainer’s schedule, and so on. The arrangements frankly annoys the crap out of me because it is so hard to get information. And not out of malice on anyone’s part. We’ve already had an episode of life lameness that could’ve been prevented if I was the one talking to the farrier instead of it being “Farrier came today… Venmo Bill $50 for trim.”
Most of the families that own their junior’s horse have a prepay set up with the vet. I don’t want to park $1000+ into an account with said vet. I may not end up using all that money. I may end up using it & 4x more, but decide that I want to have the sport vet do the treatment, or send the horse to the vet school’s hospital, etc. This vet calls days in advance for payment for the visit, which is not the norm for the area. I get it – I don’t have a prepay with them, they don’t want to put the trainer in a spot if if don’t pay. More than that though, I don’t have a baseline for this vet… You get to know the general vibe of a given practice after a while; if they tend to take a more conservative wait-and-see approach; if their view of horses as pets versus livestock versus investments in in synch with yours. I’ve sometimes gone so far as to call different vets for different horses in the past to get the best alignment of treatment philosophy for that horse.
We’ve not needed much more than a routine check ups/vaccines & a teeth float. I only received an itemized invoice because I’m unwilling to prepay. I’ve never gotten any report, although I’m sure they have one as this state requires them to write up records. Upon my questioning the results of the (very $$$$) fecal, the office manager had to put me on hold & go pull the pony’s file.
Again, I get it. Most of the parents know nothing more about horses than what they learned watching Breaker Maurant.
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I don’t know about OP’s situation, but I haven’t found a vet in years who actually ‘reports’ things in writing to the owner. I just get the bill.
I’ve wondered how they keep records for themselves. But I suspect that these days they don’t keep any official electronic records of observations, verbal diagnostics and what they were thinking at the time. Just the bill.
If they x-rayed a body part, the bill shows that, if they provided this or that treatment, it’s on the bill. Somehow a good many vets today seem to find that sufficient. It’s up to the owner to keep more detailed notes in their own files.
It’s also hard to get them to phone me while they are there performing service. We could have the same conversation by phone as if I were there, and it would take no more of their time. They say they will phone, but they don’t. If I call and hit lucky that they are working with my horse at that moment, then we can have that conversation.
Not just vets, it seems many equine service providers from farriers to bodywork don’t communicate beyond what they say verbally at the time of service. If you want to know, you have to be there. Or speak with them by phone later that day, as their memories fade quickly. Some say they will call afterwards if the owner can’t be there, but they don’t.
That’s been my experience for a few years now.
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The small animal vet I worked for about 20 years ago was serious about recording cases – it’s technically required by the licensing board in our state. Large animal vets don’t seem too worried about it I’ve.
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Do you get written reports? My vet has a worksheet they fill out for things like vaccines, and some of them do carry an iPad and make notes. But many of them do not. I definitely have not received them with the bill, though. The bill is just the bill.
Again - I totally get how this happens in a boarding situation. My only issue with the whole situation presented here is the horse owner’s opinion that the BO withheld information. And, it appears that the BO may have “filtered” information, but it’s still unclear what was filtered out and whether that made a real difference in diagnosis and treatment.
I’d like to filter out of my memory some of the mistakes I’ve made (with my vet) in diagnosing my mare’s permanent lameness situation. Hindsight is 20/20 now…there was a significant issue that we did not detect…but I really can’t blame anyone for not doing a more in-depth work-up at the PPE or at the time of initial “injury” (“re-injury”). Shrug. It would be nice if I could lay the blame at someone else’s feet, but diagnosing isn’t always black and white.
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[quote]
I’ve wondered how they keep records for themselves. But I suspect that these days they don’t keep any official electronic records of observations, verbal diagnostics and what they were thinking at the time. Just the bill. [/quote]
A DVM who does not keep adequate medical records is a fool.
In the event of a lawsuit for malpractice, a lack of records would be a serious liability.
As my old boss would say, “If it wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen.”
I know that, historically speaking, LA DVMs had a tendency to keep minimal records, but I have seen reminders from the state veterinary board in recent years that the keeping of medical records (which are legal documents) applies to LA vets as well as SA.
An acceptable patient record should include at least a brief summary of the findings on radiographs, even if it is merely “no radiographic abnormalities noted”.
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Considering that not many of us have spare hundrerds floating around our pockets, I think removing pony from trainer’s care and control is a more viable solution.
Good ponies are hard to come by and are very welcome in many good trainers yard.
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I know my vet does. Two ways.
If they are there addressing an issue (not routine care) I do get a printed report of the incident, the findings, and my instructions that the vet clearly typed into their computer and printed while sitting in my driveway. (Sometimes the printer is broken or something happens so they email it or snail mail it to me if there are not detailed instructions that I really need.)
The second way is that when a new/different vet comes out to look at one of my horses, when I try to fill them in on some history they always already know it and that response frequently includes, “I was reading the details of her file just now” and they seem to have a really good history so I know the file does not just include billing.
As far as paying, my large animal vet will do any number of things, but I have not heard of paying in advance. In my case they have a credit card on file. They bill it at the end of the day they provide service. If I did not want to do that I could pay them while they are there or I could have them send me an invoice.
I have wondered if a clear statement of diagnosis, as well as a record of their thoughts, is what they do not want in a permanent file. Wonder if they don’t want someone looking at those records later and saying “oops you got it wrong”.
If it’s just a record of what was billed, later someone can just say ‘that was appropriate’. Maybe it is to limit the field of criticism of the vet.
This is what I want from a vet and don’t ever get. (More than one vet practice. One was a gem about doing this, unfortunately he’s in another state.)
I want your vet practice to move over my way so I can switch to them. 
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Interesting. I have almost always gotten some sort of written report with the vets I’ve used over the years. Sometimes they are minimal for routine stuff but always include what was done and often the vitals.
It used to be that I would be left with hand written descriptions of findings and instructions for treatments. It was often challenging reading those! Current vet emails the report separate from the invoice They like to print out instructions at the time, but the barn has a lousy cell signal so not always possible - back to hand written for us!
I have a credit card on file. They can sometimes swipe a new card but not at our barn, so they take the info and the card is charged later in the office.
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The vets from the equine practice I personally use seem to do detailed written reports for each call. Twice, the on call vet has waived the after hours emergency fee because he happened to be sitting in a parking lot a few miles away dictating the report for his previous call when he received my page.
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Hate to revive an old thread but read through this after a recent post by the OP and it brought up a source of frustration I’ve been having. My small animal vets give clear and thorough write ups and records when I request them - diagnostics done, findings, full lab reports, written radiology reports, written summaries of clinical presentation/findings/interventions/discharge instructions. My equine vets? Not so much. Not sure if this is a thing or not, as I returned to the sport a few years ago after over 17 years off… but three different highly regarded practices over the past three years don’t seem to provide this level of documentation as a rule. Is it just me?
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Have you asked for one? My last vet basically just handed out a bill, but if requested would include the full notes for the visit. I OCR scan all my vet records so I have a very easy find what I need later.
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