Reptiles in first opinion practice - what you need to know

Practitioners are being presented with reptile patients on a regular, and increasing, basis. They deserve to be given the same standard of care as more familiar species, but is this always the case? Do undergraduates get much teaching in this area? If not, this is the course for you. BVA are repeating this heavily subscribed event, previously held in 2015.

The day aims to cover the common causes of problems and disease in popularly kept reptiles. It will cover a range of aspects, but is aimed primarily to give the delegate a practical approach and tips that can be applied in every practice. Topics will include: how important the practice team is; vital husbandry considerations; important anatomical and physiological differences; handling tips and diagnostics tests, to name but a few, which should give you the confidence to deal with these animals in the first opinion setting... and not just reach for a fluoroquinolone preparation!

Do they really get ill?

Most definitely they do; however, the problem for both owner and clinician is how easy is it to tell? It’s usually quite obvious when a dog has a broken leg. Similarly a snake may show obvious signs of septicaemia, but a sick reptile frequently does not show overt signs of disease, so how can you actually assess their health status?

Similar to a number of other ‘exotic’ species, we are heavily reliant on diagnostics to ascertain a patient's health status. Whilst this may at first seem quite a challenge - and for some patients it still can be - at the end of the course you should feel happy to take the guidance and tips back to your practice to enable you to confidently take blood samples and perform radiography, as part of your initial investigations, amongst other aspects, in the majority of cases.

The ‘next step’?

The course is also aimed at giving you the confidence to take the ‘next step’ in case management. Frequently this will require a procedure where sedation or anaesthesia is indicated. The course aims to inform you of the appropriate knowledge base to enable you to safely anaesthetise these patients safely. You will learn what is the respiratory drive for a reptile, how to monitor your patient and what are the currently recognised best forms of analgesia. Ideally certain equipment is beneficial, but not absolutely necessary. If equipment purchases are being considered, the day will try to help guide you to equipment that can also bring benefits/be used with more commonly presented species.

A traumatic case study

You are part way through your consultation session, and feeling quite relaxed at what is on the list so far. You are then informed by your receptionist that a tortoise is on its way. The owners dog has happily been 'playing' with it for the last half an hour, but the tortoise is seen to be bleeding.

You may be happy to assess the tortoise, checking how extensive the superficial wounds are making sure no ‘deeper’ damage has occurred... but if not...

How would you approach the case? What further procedures may be necessary? What analgesia should you consider? What antibiosis would be appropriate? How can we make sure we can administer medicines, food and water? What is the likely survivability for the tortoise? What should we tell the owner to expect/look for?

If you are worried that the tortoise is injured too badly, and that it may be more appropriate to consider euthanasia on welfare grounds, how on earth are you going to perform it humanely? How can you be sure the patient is subsequently dead?

Upon completing the upcoming Reptiles in first opinion practice course you should be able to answer all of the above questions. Hopefully you will also be able to build your practice's reputation for dealing with reptile species, and as word spreads it may also result in an increase of more commonly seen species - reptile owners may well also have cats and dogs in the same household.

Join us for the practically aimed day at BVA HQ on 4 July 2017 and help improve the level of health and care that these species deserve - in that aspect they’re no different to cats and dogs.