Veterinary malpractice goes unreported and unpunished

According to statistics from the Humane Society of the United States (www.humanesociety.org/issues/pet_overpopulation/facts/overpopulation_estimates.html), every year some 3 to 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized in the US. However, an untold number of dogs and cats are also killed as a result of veterinary malpractice.

Surgery performed on the wrong limb or internal organ and overdoses, would be inexcusable in the field of human medical care. But in the field of veterinary medicine, owners and advocates say are ignored, minimized or outright denied by a system that devalues the bond between pets and their owners and fails to hold veterinarians sufficiently accountable when they make mistakes.

Here are a few examples:

Washington (DC) lawyer Jared Genser had been told that Finnegan, the family's dog, had a painful and deadly bone cancer. Genser made the decisions to euthanize Finnegan. The day before the procedure, however, he discovered that the lab's diagnosis was wrong.

In Riverton (UT), Jenn Diederich's dog, Ted, suffered from a torn ligament in his right rear leg. Diederich had Ted's leg operated. Unfortunately, Ted' veterinarian operated on the left leg instead.

In Silver Spring (MD), Stefani Olsen boarded her cat, Toonces, at the local clinic when she had to go on a business trip. Olsen informed the clinic that Toonces was diabetic and needed insulin shots. When Olsen picked up Toonces, she discovered that he been given 10 times the required dose of insulin. Until his death, Toonces was blind, wracked with seizures and suffered from severe brain damage.

Had any one of these cases occurred in the medical field, instead of the veterinary field, they probably would have resulted in some type of investigation, public reporting and professional discipline. They certainly would have lead to multi-million dollar lawsuits.

In all 50 states, the law treats animals, regardless of the human-animal bond which may exist, as property. As such, animals are worth their market or replacement value, plus perhaps any economic value they generate for their owners. While the "economic value" placed on a "valuable" animal such as a winning racehorse or show dog may be high, the market value of the family's companion animal may be just a few hundred dollars. Pursuing the case against a negligent or incompetent veterinarian on the  other hand may cost the owner several thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars. Moreover, no court recognizes the right to emotional distress that the premature loss or injury to the family's companion animal may have caused, and few if any allow for attorney's fees to be paid by the losing party. Adding insult to injury, state veterinary boards dismiss up to 80% of the complaints filed against their members.

Not surprisingly, industry advocates and vets themselves disagree that there is a problem, alleging that mistakes occur only in a tiny fraction of the nearly 190 million veterinary visits each year. Moreover, they argue, adequate monitoring and discipline is in place to rectify mistakes when they do happen. "I guess I don't agree that there is a lot of malpractice out there," said Adrian Hochstadt, assistant director of state legislative and regulatory affairs for the American Veterinary Medical Association, which represents about 80,000 vets. "If there are negligent doctors -- and there are probably a few in every system -- if it's a big problem, it would have been addressed by legislation," he added.

Of course, we don't really know if "there's a big problem" since no one, including the American Veterinary Medical Association, collects statistics on veterinary malpractice. One party that may have some statistics, the Professional Liability Insurance Trust which offers malpractice insurance for vets, refuses to release numbers or outcomes of malpractice suits.

In 2004, a small study of veterinary errors was published in the journal Veterinary Record and found that 78% of recent veterinary graduates surveyed in Scotland and England admitted making a mistake that could have endangered an animal. In the absence of better data, most industry experts look to human medicine. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that medical errors cause some 250,000 premature deaths in the US, making it the third leading cause of death preceded only by heart diseases and cancer. There are approximately 100 million dogs and cats in the US being kept as companion animals, or about 1/3 of the US population. If we extrapolate, we could argue that at least 100,000 of these are killed each year through veterinary negligence or incompetence.

At the same time, vets and the different associations representing them, as well as animal groups such as the AKC (www.akc.org/index.cfm) and the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (pijac.org/), staunchly  opposed efforts to allow courts to impose non-economic damages for animals. Each argues that the move would drive up costs, push vets out of the profession and create many of the problems found in the medical malpractice realm for humans. In fact, in his report, AKC’s Chairman writes about how “canine health remains a top priority for AKC” and how the website includes a “Resource for dog lovers” and who’s core values include: (1) “cherish[ing] dogs as companions”, and (2) a “commit[ment] to the interests of dog owners.” For its part, PIJAC’s webpage states that: “Many people in the US would not consider their family complete without a pet [ ]. Pets bring considerable joy into people’s lives and studies show that their companionship substantially benefits human health and well-being.” One could call their stance, at the very best, disingenuous, and at the very worst double-faced.

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