Vet Surgery
in Palmwoods

While everyone at Palmwoods Veterinary Clinic believes in preventative medicine for keeping your pets and farm animals in the best health for the duration of their lives, some conditions are not resolvable through medicine or lifestyle changes.

Specific injuries and diseases require a more severe approach, such as surgery. The idea of your pet going through surgery may cause you to feel uneasy and concerned, but you should know our trained and experienced vets handle every procedure with the utmost care and consideration.

We know how much your pet means to you, which is why we will take every necessary measure to ensure they are comfortable before, during and after surgery, while our expertise results in a successful procedure.

Anaesthesia

Our modern anaesthetic machines are equipped with ‘isoflurane’, a safer anaesthetic agent that allows for a much quicker recovery for your pet. Precision patient monitors accurately measure your pet’s heart rate, respiration rate, blood oxygen level, blood pressure, ECG and temperature.

A trained veterinary nurse monitors your pet throughout the surgery. Our experienced vets can perform soft tissue and orthopaedic surgeries. We are committed to updating our equipment regularly, and our veterinarians keep up to date with the latest veterinary knowledge and skills by periodically attending courses and workshops. Full referral service to veterinary specialists is available close by if this is in the best interest of your pet.

Pain management and comfort are of high importance when your pet is in our care. We provide pain relief before, during and after surgery and can send pets home with an effective pain management plan. We use the best surgical products and provide excellent standards and practices.

Surgical Procedures

Soft Tissue Conditions

Our vets’ high level of expertise and our practice’s fully equipped surgical suite allows us to perform the vast majority of soft tissue surgical procedures that your pet may require. Soft tissue surgery encompasses any surgery that is not related to bones. It includes procedures such as desexing, exploratory laparotomies, caesareans, lump removals, biopsies, wound stitch-ups, removal of intestinal foreign bodies—the list is endless!

A prevalent soft tissue surgery is the removal of lumps. Some lumps may require a biopsy before removal to help understand whether they are cancerous or not. This information assists us in planning the surgery accordingly to give your pet the best possible outcome. Once they have been removed, we recommend sending them to our external laboratory for analysis.

Although most lumps are benign (not harmful), a minority are more serious (malignant). In the case of malignant (cancerous) tumours, early removal and an accurate diagnosis are extremely important to maximise the chances of a good outcome.

Eye Care (Ophthalmic)

Ophthalmic surgery is the area of pet care involving the treatment of an animal’s eyes. For certain breeds, this service also consists of the examination and certification of breeding dogs to verify their eyes are in good condition.

Eye examinations require specific equipment, such as an ophthalmoscope (a magnifying light to look into the eye).

Our veterinarians may also use a special dye called fluorescein (it glows a green/yellow colour under a UV light) to identify damage to the cornea (the clear layer at the front of the eye). Many eye conditions can be treated medically. However, specific conditions may require surgery.

We can perform the following ophthalmic surgeries:

• Enucleation (removal) of the eye for severe glaucoma or cancer cases
• Entropion surgery to prevent ocular damage from inward pointing eyelashes/eyelids
• Ectropion surgery to correct outward facing lower eyelids
• Eyelid tumour removal
• Cherry eye surgery to correct a protruding third eyelid in dogs
• Surgery to repair corneal ulcers (ulcers on the eye surface)
  

Bones & Joints (Orthopaedic)

Orthopaedic surgery encompasses any surgery that is related to bones or joints. It includes procedures such as fracture repairs, ligament repairs and spinal surgery, to name a few. Our veterinarians’ high level of expertise and our practice’s fully equipped surgical suite allows us to perform specific orthopaedic surgical procedures that your pet may require.

These may include:

• Cranial cruciate ligament repair
• Fracture (broken bone) repair
• Amputations for severe injuries or bone cancer cases



Severe orthopaedic cases, such as spinal surgery, will need to be referred to a specialist orthopaedic surgeon. Our veterinarians will assess each situation individually and provide the best advice for you and your pet.

Clinical Pathology

Clinical pathology involves the laboratory evaluation of blood, fluids or body tissues in order to identify an existing disease. Common laboratory tests include blood chemistries, complete blood counts, blood clotting times, urinalysis, faecal tests, biopsy examination, cultures and infectious disease testing.

Palmwoods Veterinary Clinic is equipped with an in-house laboratory that allows our veterinarians to quickly perform many of these diagnostic tests to achieve an accurate and rapid diagnosis. This is especially important for animals that are unwell or require timely diagnosis and treatment. Some more specialised tests may need to be performed by an external veterinary laboratory.

Our in-house laboratory can provide results within minutes. Specialised testing may take 12-24 hours for blood results or up to 14 days for biopsy results, depending on the nature of the test being performed. Ask your veterinarian when to call for your pet’s laboratory results.

Palmwoods Veterinary Clinic is the ideal place to visit if you require any lab tests done for your pet or farm animal.

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