The standards of surgical practice amongst small animal veterinary surgeons and veterinary practices within Great Britain are diverse. The aim of this study was to compare client expectations with actual practice on a variety of surgical procedures in small animal first opinion work.

Materials and Methods

Seven hundred and ten anonymous questionnaires were sent out to small animal pet owners within representative regions of Great Britain. Questions in the survey were designed to evaluate owners' expectations of their veterinary clinic on issues relating to aseptic technique and operative and postoperative practice. A further 60 anonymous questionnaires were sent to final year veterinary students at the University of Cambridge detailing actual practices, relating to the same issues, at first opinion veterinary practices in Great Britain where they had spent time during EMS.

Results

Three hundred and twenty eight (46.2%) of the pet owner questionnaires and 56 (93%) of the veterinary practice questionnaires were returned completed. The results demonstrated that owner expectations differed significantly to actual practice with the exception of pet owners' expectations regarding the use of re-usable versus non re-usable drapes. The largest disparity between owners' expectation and surgical practice within veterinary clinics concerned the wearing of sterile gloves during surgery. 98.2% of small animal owners would expect their veterinary surgeon to wear sterile gloves when operating and 87.3% of these owners would be unhappy if this was not the case. 86.0% of owners also said their answer would be the same for all types of surgical procedures. In contrast, only 37.5% of veterinary practices in the survey wore gloves for all operations and 26.8% of the vet practices never used gloves when operating.

Conclusion

This study indicates that the pet owners in Great Britain taking part in this survey have high expectations of veterinary surgical practices, particularly in relation to the wearing of protective surgical clothing. These expectations were significantly different from the actual surgical practices employed by the first opinion veterinary clinics in this study. This result would be unsatisfactory to the majority of pet owners. The reason for this large disparity is most likely to be multi-factorial.