Reply To: Alpha 2s and Atropine

Great question and a really tricky one! I’ll not touch on the clinical side.

But I’ve learnt it’s not what you say but the way that you say it. Having been on the other side of this and actually owing a lot my confidence with decision making now, due to the nurses I worked with when I started practicing just doing little subtle things to suggest that I should maybe double check something, or gauging whether or not I’m sure about something or not. I think a lot of the response I gave (hopefully a positive one) came down to the way the question was asked – They careful signposted to either ask another colleague or suggested an alternative way of doing it because they’ve seen most people do it that way. I was a brand new vet at this point so responded to this, as to be honest, a lot of the time it’s worth that double check and sometimes I wasn’t really sure! and that’s ok. You only get better when you realise what you don’t know.

In your situation, if that person isn’t wanting to accept that you maybe have more knowledge in that area due to an interest or something, then providing a colleague of a similar level to that person could result in a better response. I’m not in anyway that it’s ok that a doctor/vet wouldn’t take onboard things their team are saying but it does happen – and this maybe is a way around it.

In time dependent situations this is a little more tricky, perhaps may be worth approaching a few days after the incident and ask them if they’d mind explain their decision making process in those situations as it’s a topic you find interesting. Once that door has been opened you can bring in the why atropine over atipmazole.

Hope that helps 🙂
Simon