Whole team training Jordan’s entire staff is trained to help with exotic care, using all the tools available to them. That includes the NewTom. “The
whole team has to know how to work smaller. You’re using smaller syringes, dealing with smaller blood volumes and the anesthesia is tricky,” he said. “Taking adequate blood volume from a sugar glider who weighs 30 grams? You’ve got to have practice and skill to do it right. Exotics push us to do very high quality medicine.”
Practices that purchase the NewTom get six days of free onsite training. When asked how the training went for himself and his staff, Jordan said, “Amazingly simple! All my techs were anticipating a big learning curve, but they learned it quicker than I did. Now, all my techs can do a CT, not just one. They are all comfortable doing it, and it’s become a routine part of my practice.”
Big results in a small footprint
Many veterinary practices are short on space. But that doesn’t mean you need to short your diagnostics; the minimum room size for the NewTom is nine feet by five feet. There is no need for lead-lined walls, either, or a specialized electrical panel. The NewTom plugs into a regular wall outlet and can make itself at home in a double-drywalled room. The NewTom isn’t fussy in terms of temperature either – no cooling system is needed.
Radiation exposure for patients and staff is substantially reduced and technicians can be in the same room while completing the scan. And the NewTom can help a patient throughout his or her lifetime; electronic tracing means each image is tagged, so you can always go back to the original to see changes.
The wow factor The NewTom has been a game changer for the Animal Medical Center of the Village. “We’ve done stuff where we’ve looked at each other and said, ‘Wow!’ We would not have been able to move forward without this,” said Jordan.
Some of the more dramatic stories have been with exotics, particularly rabbits. Since rabbits have teeth that grow throughout their whole lives, they in turn, have a lot of dental issues. Abscesses are common, and cannot be treated with antibiotics. Tooth extraction is difficult at best, as rabbits have a small mouth so dental extraction might occur approaching from outside the skull as well as intraorally. Rabbits, unsurprisingly, are also prone to inner ear infections. Jordan has had great success treating rabbits that would have died otherwise.
“I’ve had clients come in who have been to three emergency rooms, all of them saying, ‘We don’t see rabbits.’ I think that’s so wrong! It pushed me to keep going with exotics,” Jordan said. “I feel like vets are narrowing themselves to dogs and cats, and it makes me sad. I feel it’s the right thing to do to see the full spectrum of pets. I did, and it’s paid off.”
Offsetting the cost
Now that Jordan and his staff have had the NewTom for six months, word has gotten out in the community about the quick, quality images it’s generating for them. It is also generating business, as veterinarians in the area are sending clients to the practice for a scan.
When purchased through Patterson, the NewTom comes with what Equipment Specialist Michele Klug calls a “nose-to-tail” warranty – one that covers everything for five years, including the gantry and software system as well as complete care and maintenance. The added bonus? “The NewTom also improves chances that a client will take a recommendation based on 3D imaging,” Klug said. “They feel they can trust the results done by people they trust.”
Trust is certainly a common theme for Jordan throughout his 35 years in practice. Following hunches led him to take advantage of technology throughout his career, with NewTom being the latest example. “I’ve been cutting edge on a lot of things,” Jordan admits, even when others have tried to talk him out of it. “But I’m always trying to do better for the patient and improve workflow. The NewTom helps me do both.”
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