Vets: What is a specialist?

What is a specialist?

John Chitty, BVetMed CertZooMed MRCVS

A hard question to answer!

To start with, what is a specialist? Officially a Specialist is recognised by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) or the European College of Zoological Medicine (ECZM). At present there is only one of these in the UK – Frances Harcourt-Brown in Harrogate.

However, there are other vets with qualifications that may indicate some higher degree of studying – eg. RCVS Diploma or Certificate in Zoological Medicine (yes, this does include rabbits!) and some of these may be recognised as RCVS Specialists in Zoo and Wildlife Medicine.
Further still, some vets choose to “specialise” by dint of what they do. While they cannot claim to be official Specialists they do offer specialised facilities and knowledge.

Confusing? You bet!

So, what to do?

Above all, rabbit owners should be looking for “rabbit-interested” vets. They can look at the following areas

• What facilities does the practice have just for rabbits? Many clinics are happy to show these to owners
  
  
• Cost - cheap vets are not necessarily the best..or the worst. Cost is important but bear in mind that good quality medicine is hard to do on a shoestring
  
  
• Does the practice seem to understand the needs of rabbits? A conversation with vet or nurse may help to confirm this. The presence of some rabbit-orientated posters in the waiting room doesn’t always indicate a lot while lots of leaflets and posters created in-house does show someone is genuinely interested
  
  
• Do vets and nurse attend rabbit-orientated continuing education?
  
  
• How many vets are interested? If only one, who will deal with cases when he or she is away? What happens out-of-hours?
  
  
• Does the vet publish on or teach rabbit medicine?

Above all, do you know someone who recommends that clinic? If so, why do they recommend it and do you trust their opinion? If the opposite, then why is it not recommended?

Personal opinion is the most important way of finding out about a rabbit vet and can tell more than bare qualifications. After all, without a caseload, you can’t get the qualifications, and we all have to start somewhere!

JC Exotic Pet Consultancy Ltd

Tel : 07775796432
Fax : +44 1980 610370

enquiries@jcexoticpetconsultancy.co.uk
www.jcexoticpetconsultancy.co.uk



This article was first published in 'Hopping Mad! Bunny Magazine' - February 2011. The original can be viewed HERE

This article is Copyright © John Chitty & JC Exotic Pet Consultancy - February 2011. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reproduced by 'Hopping Mad! Bunny Magazine'and Happy Hoppers Forum, with the kind permission of John Chitty & JC Exotic Pet Consultancy