Well, I need to put together a letter because of the emergency room vet
who didn't know squat about insulinoma in ferrets -- not a complaint
letter.  No, I want to change things not cause animosity, and it isn't
that vet's fault that most vet schools teach nothing or next to nothing
about ferrets.
 
Instead this will be the sort of letter we all used to need to share with
vets except it is going to be easier to compose.  Back then information
was hard to get -- sometimes exceedingly hard to get.  Now, pointing
people to useful URLs and vet texts goes a very long way.
 
Here are some of the URLs I so far plan to include (along with a
selection of short quotes unless I ask the authors for permission to
copy and pass the pieces on and get those permissions):
 
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org which has about 2 and 1/2 years worth of
veterinary queries and replies on many health topics and is easily
searched -- handy for a vet who doesn't know ferrets, and he needs to
also know about A/V Node Block.
 
http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/ferrethealth mostly for the Node
Block info this time
 
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html this time largely for the
insulinoma article and ones on the ways that ferret interpretations
differ those for other domestic species, but it is a real treasure
trove, especially for vets.
 
http://home.att.net/~hhoefer/ferret_insulinoma.htm and other pieces at
her site
 
http://www.lbah.com/Ferrets/insulinoma.htm,
 
http://www.petcarevabeach.com/insul.html,
 
http://www.bradleyhills.com/ferret/publications.htm make good additions
to further emphasize the main points.
 
The goal is to try to improve what the vet knows.  He had trouble not
knowing the specifics of ferrets and he really wasn't good with people,
but he obviously deeply cared about the animals, so why not help him have
the tools he needs to follow through from that love of animals into being
able to better serve them?  That way everyone wins.
[Posted in FML issue 4295]