Tag Archives: Surgery

Each year on July 22, the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center celebrates American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Accredited Hospital Day. We celebrate because we have been an AAHA certified hospital since 1976 and a certified referral hospital since 2023. AAHA is an industry leader that originally set the standards for small animal hospitals in North America but now has certified hospitals in Japan, South Korea, China, the West Indies and Guam.

Earlier this month, the Schwarzman Animal Medicine Center hosted a continuing education lecture for AMC’s partner veterinarians. This evening event featured Drs. Pamela Schwartz and Daniel Spector of the Denise and Michael Kellen Institute for Surgical Care. They presented the exciting upgrades in surgical capabilities in our new surgery suites. While veterinarians will gawk at the innovative tools and techniques now available to AMC veterinary surgeons, these advances may not be fully appreciated by pet parents who are primarily concerned with their pets’ outcome, not necessarily how it was achieved. I’ll try to translate these improvements for pet parents in today’s blogpost.

The month of March has two holidays for math lovers. Many readers may already know about Pi Day, or 3/14, which celebrates the first three digits of the mathematical constant Pi. Those of us that love animals may be more familiar with Triday, 3/3, a day dedicated to the resilient pets that have undergone a limb amputation and thrived as “tripawds.” Limb amputations in pets are performed to correct injuries and treat bone infections and cancer. In today’s blogpost, I’ll discuss the medical situations that may necessitate amputation and some of the emotional considerations of this surgery.

July 12th marks Julius Caesar’s 2124th birthday. Medically, this date is important because a common surgery, the Caesarean section, is named in Mr. Caesar’s honor, even though there’s no proof he was delivered through this surgery. Often referred to as a C-section, this surgery is performed when offspring are delivered through an abdominal incision rather than through the birth canal. The word “offspring” is a calculated decision on my part. C-sections are common in human medicine, but veterinarians will also deliver puppies, kittens, calves, lambs and the occasional bird or turtle via a C-section. C-section surgery is as important to animal health as it is to human health.

Leap Year rolls around every four years. For those born on February 29, they age (numerically) 75% slower than the rest of us because their birthday happens only every four years. The chances of having a “leapling” pet are about one in 1,461. Since the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center sees 50,000+ patient visits each year, I thought there must be some leapling patients in our system and, sure enough, when I queried our medical records, there were a number of them. To celebrate Leap Year 2024, here are their stories in order of their birth!