Drinking from the Trough by Mary E. Carlson DVM

Author:Mary E. Carlson DVM [DVM, Mary E. Carlson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2018-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

14

A Matter of Respect

“What a sweet kitty,” I gushed, stroking the gorgeous fur of Sienna, the seal point Siamese gracing my exam table.

Dee, the cat’s owner, stiffened and said, “Dr. Carlson, this is not a kitty. This is a cat.”

My face flushed with embarrassment. I was a new veterinarian, with my own newly opened cat clinic, and I’d just managed to offend one of my first clients. I backpedaled, trying to apologize without making matters worse.

This isn’t something they teach you at vet school. Vet school teaches you all the technical and medical jargon. How to diagnose and how to treat.

Not how to talk to clients.

I was already pretty good at translating the technical medical gibberish into language clients could understand, but it had never occurred to me that calling a client’s full-grown felines “kitties” could be offensive. It was true that Sienna and her companion cat, Daisy, were both well beyond kittenhood. I estimated their ages at twelve or thirteen years, which put them at late middle age to early old age for Siamese cats.

But my vet school classmates and I always used terms of endearment like “kitty.” I called my own elderly cats “kitties.”

At the same time, I understood that this was a matter of respect. To Dee, calling her stately Siamese pets “kitties” was disrespectful, as well as inaccurate.

Dee and her cats left, exams completed. I still felt chastened, and I was certain they’d never come back.

From the first day I opened my clinic, I introduced myself as Mary Carlson, not Doctor Carlson or Doctor Mary. I was proud of my degree, but I didn’t feel the need to flaunt it; I’m more of a first-name-basis person. I also had each new client fill out an information sheet. One of the questions asked if they preferred to be addressed by their first name or their last.

Why hadn’t I asked my clients their preferences for their adored felines?

Especially since one of my own pet peeves is a stranger calling me “honey” or “dearie” or “sweetie.”

I remembered the phone call from the hospital’s grief counselor after my mother had died.

Mom had been hospitalized for complications related to Crohn’s disease. Unfortunately, she’d had a bad internist instead of a good gastroenterologist. Her intestine ruptured, pouring its bacteria- and pus-filled contents into her abdomen, causing fatal septicemia. By the time the hospital staff noticed that she’d stopped breathing, she was essentially brain-dead.

There was no reason for me to go to the hospital; the woman I knew as my mother was gone, even if life support was keeping her body functioning, and I had no desire to see my mother as a corpse. I told the doctor to discontinue her treatment and call me when she was gone.

He never called.

So when Mrs. Lyons, the counselor, called, my first question was simply whether or not my mother was dead.

Mrs. Lyons’s voice was steeped in syrupy, somber tones. “Yes, dear,” she intoned. “She’s gone.”

I have no idea what followed that; I only remember her overblown sorrow and that she called me “dear.

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