Surgery Home • Soft Tissue Surgery • Orthopedic and Neurosurgery • Information for Clients • Information for Veterinarians  Costs • State of the Art Equipment • Rehabilitation • Emergencies • Faculty and Staff

Consultations

Our veterinary surgeons are available for consultations with other veterinarians by telephone. Veterinarians wishing to contact the Companion Animal Surgery Service should call the Small Animal Clinic at 225-578-9600.

If a consultation based on radiographic findings is desired, radiographs should be addressed to the appropriate surgical service (e.g., soft tissue or orthopedics/neurosurgery) at the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, LSU, Skip Bertman Drive, Baton Rouge LA 70803-8410.

Referrals

(click here for printable referral form in pdf)

Your referrals are important to us!

Referring veterinarians have a dedicated telephone line for making referral appointments or reaching one of our clinicians about a possible referral (225-578-9600). Our staff will respond to your calls on this priority line as quickly as possible.

When we receive a professional referral, we make every attempt to call you within one hour to discuss the case. If we cannot come to the phone immediately, we will either have someone else speak with you or return your call as soon as we are able. Please consider leaving an after-hours contact telephone number, if it is late in the day.

Since your name remains associated with your client’s records, you will be kept fully updated of any further client visits, through telephone calls, fax, or written copies of the discharge instructions and visit summaries.

How to refer a client to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital

Please call the Small Animal Desk at 225-578-9600 to make a referral. After speaking to a veterinarian on the orthopedic team, you may schedule an appointment for the client, or have the client call our receptionists to schedule an appointment that is best for them.

The Companion Animal Orthopedics and Neurosurgical Service has scheduled appointments on Monday afternoons and Wednesday mornings. The Soft Tissue Surgical Service has appointments on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Surgeries are generally scheduled the day following the appointment; emergencies and urgent referrals are fit in as needed.

To expedite the process for your clients, use the following procedures for all referrals:

1. Have the client and animal information available:

Client name and address
Client telephone numbers
Animal name, signalment and reason for referral

2. If possible, send a completed VTH Referral Form, as well as any pertinent diagnostic results (e.g. laboratory tests, radiographs) with your client.

Discharge information and access to diagnostic imaging

You are an active partner with us in providing our students with excellent case material through the referral process. We greatly value your referrals, and we are striving to make the referral process and feed back more convenient for you.

Discharge instructions summarizing results of diagnostic procedures, treatments, and recommendations for aftercare are routinely faxed to the referring clinic within 24 hours of discharge. Please contact us if you prefer to receive the instructions via email or if you do not receive the documents in time.

If you have Internet access, you can review radiographs and CT scans of the animals you have referred to us. The radiographs should be posted on the web within 24 hours.

Emergencies:

Emergencies and urgent referrals are seen 24 hours a day. If you have an emergency or urgent consult during normal business hours (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) inform the receptionist and they will contact us. If we cannot come to the phone immediately, the receptionist will find another staff veterinarian to discuss the case with you, or we will return your call as soon as possible. We appreciate that you work in a busy clinic yourself. Therefore if you prefer not to wait on the telephone, just leave your number and we will contact you.

Between 5 PM and 8 AM, the emergency veterinarian will attend to the animal. If emergency surgery is indicated, the emergency staff will notify the surgeons who are on-call. Otherwise, the animal will be treated by the emergency staff and transferred to the appropriate service the next business morning.