Vetinfo Statement of Purpose

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Vetinfo Statement of Purpose

Why We Do What We Do


We provide veterinary health information relating to dogs and cats. We have an extensive collection of information online in our Dog Health Information and Cat Health Information pages.

Our staff members are the owners and employees of a small animal veterinary hospital. We have the training and experience necessary to help you understand diseases, disorders and health maintenance requirements of dogs and cats.

We believe that well informed people take better care of their pets!

Michal Justis and Michael Richards, DVM established the VetInfo web site in 1996 in an effort to provide a reference source for veterinary information with an emphasis on information that can be scientifically validated.

It is our hope that this site will serve several purposes:

We know that most of our clients leave our office without a full understanding of the diagnosis, or list of differential diagnoses, that we have provided for their pet. It is just not possible to absorb all the possible information about a problem in the span of one office visit.

We recognize that people often want to know much more about a disease or disorder once they get home. We feel that people who want this information should have a good source for it and we hope that www.vetinfo.com and the VetInfo Digest will be such a source.

Sometimes a pet is not doing well despite a good diagnostic work-up and reasonable treatment efforts. In this case, it is helpful to have some idea what diseases and disorders resemble the diagnosis and can be confused with it. This list is referred to by veterinarians as the "differential list". A good differential list can be the difference between a good and bad outcome. For this reason, we will provide a list of illnesses that might resemble the illness that a veterinarian suspects is present.

Finally, we feel strongly that it is reasonable for any veterinary client to be able to find information on customary treatments for a disease or disorder, including laboratory test parameters and drug dosages. It is important to realize that there are almost always several published treatment protocols and that there are often several different dosage ranges published for any particular medication, which may vary by the condition being treated, by the patient's needs or by the experiences of veterinarians using these medications. Any information on our site should be evaluated with this in mind.

While we try very hard to provide accurate information, it is likely that there are errors on our web site at any given time.

Please check all information with your veterinarian or with additional reference sources! We are not able to answer questions on the site. Even for subscribers, we can not guarantee an answer to every question, nor can we provide timely responses to urgent questions in many instances. Please do not subscribe to our site without thinking about these limitations. Please do not use our site to attempt to diagnose or treat your pet. Your veterinarian is the best source of health advice for an individual pet. Please do use our site to become better informed about the medical problems your pet may have. We will do our best to ensure that information presented is accurate and up-to-date. The most current information will be at the top of each page. Remember that veterinarians often disagree about the best treatments for pets. There are often several perfectly acceptable ways to treat the same condition. Just ask a lot of questions!

Michael Richards, DVM
Michal Justis


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Michael Richards, D.V.M. co-owns a small animal general veterinary practice in rural tidewater Virginia. Dr. Richards graduated from Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine in 1979, and has been in private practice ever since. Dr. Richards has been the director of the PetCare Forum...

 

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