A veterinarian has been reprimanded by the disciplinary board because he accidentally operated on the wrong rabbit. The doctor had to sterilize Lop Bibi, but cut open the abdomen of her brother Jim, who had also been brought along. He received a warning for that painful mix-up, according to a ruling by the Veterinary Disciplinary Board.
Lop rabbits Jim and Bibi, brother and sister, were born from the same litter on June 18, 2021. To prevent them from mating, Jim was castrated. Two years ago, Bibi was also taken to the veterinary clinic to be sterilized.
On the advice of the practice, the owner also took Jim with her that day to avoid stress for Bibi as much as possible. The vet was not informed before the operation that there would be two rabbits from the same owner in the preparation room.
Brother and sister also show similarities. Bibi is white and brown in color and weighed 1.86 kilos at the time, Jim is white, brown and black in color and weighed almost the same (1.84 kilos). The vet took the already neutered Jim to the operating room, assuming it was Bibi. “This is the right rabbit,” his assistant told him. From this he concluded that there was another rabbit from the same owner in the room.
Travel cage
Indeed, Bibi turned out to be in a travel cage in another corner of the preparation room. To be sure, the doctor took both rabbits to the operating room for internal examination. But he couldn’t find testicles or a penis in either rabbit.
Ultimately, Jim ended up on the operating table because his weight on the patient chart was almost the same as Bibi’s and he had been designated as ‘the right rabbit’ by the assistant. When opening the abdomen, the vet discovered that he was not dealing with a female rabbit, and therefore not with Bibi. He immediately sutured Jim’s abdominal wound, put a special medical romper on him and took Bibi to the operating room for sterilization.
After the operation, the vet called the owner of the rabbits to report the error. She did not have to pay for Jim’s abdominal surgery. When she picked up her pets later that day, the doctor was absent.
Jim and Bibi suffered a lot. A day after the operation they ate poorly and sat quietly in a corner at home. The owner of the lop-eared rabbits subsequently visited the clinic several times because Jim’s abdominal wound was not healing properly. The vet was only present at the first consultation, the day after the operation, but was conspicuous by his absence afterwards. The owner then went to another clinic. Jim did recover quickly there.
Lightly
She filed a complaint against the vet with the Veterinary Disciplinary Board because he had unnecessarily performed abdominal surgery on Jim and then provided ‘insufficient aftercare’. The disciplinary board ruled that the veterinarian carried out the operation ‘lightly’. Weight was not a reliable starting point. The doctor could also have checked the colors of the coat or inquired with the owner.
“In the opinion of the board, this was an avoidable error and the defendant can be blamed for not having checked better whether he was dealing with the correct rabbit prior to the operation,” the ruling states.
The vet will receive an official warning for this. The disciplinary board does not believe that the veterinarian failed to provide aftercare.
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Tags: Veterinarian discovers surgery sterilizes wrong lopeared rabbit Domestic
