Research Assessment #4

Date: October 11, 2018

Subject: Exotic Veterinarians
MLA or APA Citation: Newman, Andy. “The Doctor Will See Your Iguana Now.” The New
York Times, The New York Times, 12 May 2017,
www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/nyregion/exotic-animal-hospital.html.

Analysis:
While conducting several in-person-interviews, I have brought up the topic of exotics to
the professionals. I have come to find out that many veterinarians do not actually work with
exotics or have any experience with them. I personally have a soft spot for exotics, so this led
me to want to gather more information on what its like working with exotics, since the
professionals I spoke with couldn’t tell me. In this article, they go over a normal day in the life of
an Exotic Veterinarian and they also touch on common aspects usually found in exotic clinics. I
thought this information would be useful to retain because it would reveal to me what to expect
if I decided to specialize in exotics and how to be proficient in this field.

The article explained that the term exotic in the veterinary field means all pets except
cats and dogs. This was intriguing to me because previously I only thought of exotic pets as
either being a reptile or an amphibian. Through this article I finally understood that birds are not
only classified as avians, but also as an exotic pet as well as rodients. It changed my
perspective since previously, I thought Small Animal Veterinarian took care of all small
household pets.

The article continues to show how Dr.Pilny doesn’t agree with keeping some of these
exotic animals as pets that are brought into his clinic. Even though he disagrees with keeping
these animals as pets, he doesn’t report them because he is only there to provide medical care.
We discussed this problem briefly in my Veterinary Medicine class a couple of days ago, my
teacher explained that in a clinic if the staff can tell an animal is being placed into an
undesirable situation, as a professional they can not report the animal abuse because they
lower their customer review and lose business. This “rule” flows into all specializations of
veterinary medicine, which is shocking to me because a good majority of these animals in the
exotic side are almost completely wild.

Lastly the article explained how the specific clinic that Dr.Pilny works for is only for
Avian and Exotic pets, since the clinic wants to avoid the predator and prey interaction. While
looking into clinics and their thought processes, I always thought the clinic would want to care
for as many different types of animals (such as livestock, household pets, exotics, etc.) as
possible so they could receive the max amount of business. This mindset doesn’t account for
how dangerous and chaotic an environment could become if all these different specializations
were concentrated into one clinic. By selecting one practice for a clinic, this would leave the
patients feeling less stressed because they would be surrounded by animals not only their size,
but also from the same level of dominance on the food chains.

After reading this article, I believe I gathered a better understanding for what working as
an Exotic Veterinarian calls for and what the struggles of this field are. I can conclude overall
that working in exotics may be something I actually take into consideration, since not many
veterinarians go into this specialization which leads for there to be a medical demand for
professionals in this field.
The Doctor Will See Your Iguana Now
For the duck with egg problems and the iguana with a troubled snout, Dr. Anthony Pilny
is a ray of hope. He treats exotic pets at the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine on the
Upper West Side of Manhattan.Published On May 12, 2017 Credit Credit Image by
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
By Andy Newman

Dr. Anthony Pilny started the day short-handed: A colleague at the Center for Avian and
Exotic Medicine was bitten by an iguana while making her morning rounds.
An iguana’s mouth contains around 100 tiny serrated teeth. The other vet went off to
the urgent care clinic to get stitches, leaving Dr. Pilny to do an enormously messy piece
of gynecological surgery on a duck without an assisting doctor.
The duck was out cold on the table in a basement operating room, a breathing tube
stuck down her bill. Dr. Pilny sliced open her abdominal cavity and rooted around.
“What is this?” he asked. “I’m seeing some sort of fluid-filled sac like structures. I see
free egg yolk in her body.”

There was little time to ponder the situation. On this Thursday morning not long ago,
patients were stacked up in their cages: a guinea pig with hair loss, a rabbit unable to
move its bowels, and the irascible iguana, now relaxing behind a sign that said “Use
Caution Lunges.” Others waited in recovery: a hedgehog newly minus one eyeball, and a
chinchilla who sacrificed a leg to the bars of her cage.
The center, on Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is the city’s only
exclusively exotic animal hospital. “Exotic” in the veterinary trade simply means all pets
except cats and dogs. The center treats anything else that comes in the door and Commented [1]: I didn't realize that dogs and cats
were the only animals considered to be household
weighs under 50 pounds. Most of the patients are rabbits, rodents, lizards or birds, but pets, I thought rodents were included in this list. Also
they can get pretty exotic: kinkajous, alligators, flower horn fish and prairie dogs. So can didn't realize birds were considered exotic, I only
considered them avians.
their problems.
“I’ve been an avian and exotic vet since 2004,” Dr. Pilny said, “and every day I say, ‘What
the hell is this?’”
Many of the center’s patients are not legal in New York City, sometimes for good
reason. “I’m not a big fan of people keeping a lot of the animals that come in here,” Dr.
Pilny said.
 Dino the duck was weighed at the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine after
surgery to remove two pounds of egg yolks from her abdomen.Credit Karsten Moran for
The New York Times
But the center asks no questions and passes no judgments. It is not the pet police.
“We don’t report anybody,” Dr. Pilny said. “We just provide medical care.” Commented [2]: Its crazy to think that a trained
professional can't report when animals are being
abused or put into inhumane situations.
Dino, the 3-year-old white duck on the operating table, was a longtime patient. In 2015,
she lost her ability to form eggshells, and unlaid eggs built up inside her. Dr. Pilny
removed most of her reproductive hardware but left her ovary because taking it out
could make her bleed to death. Commented [3]: How did they gather this information?
Did Dr.Pilny learn this knowledge about ducks from
“Most birds when you take out the reproductive tract, they stop ovulating,” Dr. Pilny said. extensive schooling or just a lot of personal
“This duck decided to break the rules.” experience?

Dino has other health issues. Her egg problems led to calcium deficiency, weak bones
and a fractured leg. She could no longer walk.
“She can crawl around on towels, but otherwise we have to carry her everywhere,” said
her owner, E. J. Orbe, a ballroom dance instructor from Paterson, N.J. Commented [4]: Doesn't this go against animals
welfare? Dino seems she can't enjoy living her life to
Some people might hesitate to invest $1,200 in gynecological surgery on a lame duck. the fullest since she is immobile, so is it morally wrong
But Dino has a job: She’s a seeing-eye duck for another of Mr. Orbe’s ducks, Penguin, for the doctors and staff not to put her to rest?

who is blind. “She finds food and water and makes noises, and Penguin would come
over and start eating,” Mr. Orbe said.
Inside Dino, Dr. Pilny was hacking his way through a sea of yolky blobs. “It’s just a very
extensive, severe amount of schmutz in here,” he said to the veterinary technician,
Kristine Castillo. A clamp on Dino’s webbed foot fed her vital signs to a monitor. Her
heartbeat pounded through the cheap speaker like a tom-tom drum: thwap-thwap,
thwap-thwap.

Dr. Pilny explained as he cut: After Dino’s earlier surgery, the yolks she produced fell
loose inside her body and formed cysts that attached themselves to various organs.
There were hundreds. He removed some of them and drained others that were too
stuck.
“Now comes the part where I try to do something risky and just hope it’s right,” he said.
He tied off the blood supply to the oviduct. “Please, duck,” he said.
Image

Dr. Anthony Pilny operated on Dino for nearly two hours.Credit Photographs by
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
A cyst burst at the touch of his blade and sprayed yellow fluid toward his face. He did
not flinch. The technician called for more gauze pads.
“Everything just bleeds and bleeds and bleeds!” Dr. Pilny said.
The surgery ground into its second hour. The hospital’s practice manager, Lorelei
Tibbetts, poked her head into the small, beeping, thumping operating room. It was about
Snorri, the constipated white rabbit. “He’s looking at me miserably, like he has a balloon
in his belly,” she said. “Should we try laser?”
Dr. Pilny told her to hang on. A blood vessel burst. “That wasn’t good,” he said. He cut
and sewed, cut and sewed. The bleeding stopped. Dr. Pilny decided he had done all he
could for one day.
Ms. Tibbetts came around again. “You closing?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Dr. Pilny said.
“Are you happy?”
“Am I ever happy?”
“So, no.”
Dr. Pilny, 44, is one of three veterinarians at the center. He has a tattoo of a crane on
one arm, a finch on the other, and a puffin on the back of his leg. He wears a tropical-
theme surgical cap with parrots and green leaves on it. He is particularly fond of birds;
he has 15 of them. He saves brightly colored feathers from his patients in a desk drawer
in the hospital office and periodically sends them to the Pueblo of Zuni in New Mexico,
where mottled plumage is required for headdresses.
Dr. Pilny grew up in the Bronx, went to veterinary school at the University of Florida and
specialized in exotics because he likes to see the insides of different kinds of animals Commented [5]: I have been considering going to the
University of Florida since the veterinary science
and enjoys a challenge. But medicine is medicine. schooling there is pretty good. I am wondering whether
“Sometimes you look heroic and you save the animal’s life and the little girl is happy,” he they have outstanding classes on exotics because I am
realizing there isn't a lot in Texas for learning about
said. Sometimes the patient dies. Mostly, the results fall somewhere in between. exotic pets and my biggest goal is to go to college and
The center opened 12 years ago, spun off from Animal General, a hospital two doors get a degree involving not only household pets but also
exotics.
down. Though the city’s biggest pet hospital, the Animal Medical Center on the Upper
East Side, treats plenty of exotics, Animal General’s owners thought there was a place
for a stand-alone practice where predator-prey interaction was kept to a minimum.
“One of the ideas is that cats and birds don’t mix,” said Karen Heidgerd, the Center for
Avian and Exotic Medicine administrator.
Commented [6]: I think it's intriguing that this clinic
thought of only being an exotic clinic due to the food
chain's tendencies. Sometimes making as much money
as possible (being open to as many specializations as
possible) is the top priority, so I am very appreciative of
how the clinic took the exotics animals' safety into
account first.

Neko the guinea pig received a catheter during her surgery for ovarian
cysts.Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times
The cherry vibe in the reception area would not be possible in the presence of cats and
dogs. Bright-beak finches flit in the window. The center’s resident rabbits nibble sprigs
of hay in an alcove by the front desk.

The center sees about 10 patients on a typical day. While there are no statistics on
ownership of exotic pets in New York (especially illegal ones), Ms. Tibbetts said that
more owners seemed to be seeking medical care.
“In the past, they were just considered ‘caged pets’ and most people didn’t even
consider taking them to the vet,” she said. Most owners do not carry insurance, though
it is available, Dr. Pilny said.
Dr. Pliny's next surgery was an ovariohysterectomy on a guinea pig. Her owners had
brought her in because she was losing fur on her flanks. Dr. Pilny noticed that the fur
loss was identical on both sides. Symmetrical alopecia is caused by a hormonal
imbalance, which was probably in turn caused by ovarian cysts. Cut, snip, slice, sew,
done. Fifteen minutes.
Ms. Tibbetts poked her head in again. “What did you find?” she asked.
“Nothing too exciting,” Dr. Pilny said. “A little cyst on the left ovary, a little inflammation.”
He admired his handiwork.
“The thing that matters most to the owners is how they look when they pick them up
from surgery,” Dr. Pilny said. “No matter how life saving or complicated the surgery,
what matters is when they pick the pet up and say, ‘Look at that incision.’”
Dr. Pilny ate lunch at his desk. He called the duck’s owner and told him the surgery had
gone reasonably well.
“Maybe it buys her a good eight months or a year or something,” he told Mr. Orbe. “I
don’t necessarily think she’s cured, but I think this helped a lot.”

After lunch, things got weird.

A rabbit was brought in for a dental issue, but during the exam, its eyes began jerking
back and forth, a condition called nystagmus. Then it started running around in circles
on the treatment table. “I told the owner it’s either a bizarre coincidence, or this is the
real problem,” Dr. Pilny said. The rabbit was tested and treated for a protozoan
infection.
Image

Spot the iguana awaited examination for a lesion on her head.Credit Karsten
Moran for The New York Times
Meanwhile, the owners of Snorri the constipated rabbit came to visit him. While they
were holding him, Snorri became agitated, moved his bowels violently and collapsed. Dr.
Pilny could not revive him.
Snorri’s owners sobbed loudly behind a closed door, but the staff was a little shaken,
too. Snorri had been born at the center six months ago. His parents were the pair of
bunnies munching hay in the reception area. “It’s a young rabbit,” Dr. Pilny said. “It
shouldn’t happen.” Commented [7]: How does the veterinarian handle
sporadic situations where an animal dies
By now, Dr. Pilny had a headache. The veterinary technician brought out the iguana. Her unexpectedly? How do you explain the situation to the
name was Spot. She was 9 and had a history of lesions and fungal infection. Her tail owners if you don't fully understand it yourself?

was amputated a while ago. Now she had a crusty lesion on the top of her head that
needed to be biopsied.
The technician held Spot, tightly wrapped in a towel. Dr. Pilny gave her a shot of
lidocaine. He took the tissue sample and then stuck a hemostat in the hole in her head
to feel around. He expected to hit bone. He did not. “It feels like I’m passing it through
beach sand,” he said.
Dr. Pilny prospected a bit inside Spot’s skull. Soon he had reached her sinus. Some
blood came out of her nose. “I could dig around in here all day,” Dr. Pilny said.

The grim jokes began to flow, like something out of “M*A*S*H” crossed with “All
Creatures Great and Small.”
“Did she just blow air out of that hole?” Dr. Pilny asked. “Did I make a blowhole and turn
it into a whale? I did — I turned an iguana into a whale.”
Ms. Tibbetts came over to inspect. “This whole thing — it has no tail!” she said. “We had
to chop its whole tail off. It’s like rotting from the inside, and we can’t stop it.”
“That’s like what the clients say: ‘Is it rotting from the inside out?’” Dr. Pilny said.
“It is!” Ms. Tibbetts said. “This one the answer is yes.”

An X-ray of Spot the iguana showed a gap in her nasal bone. She turned out to
have a bone infection.Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Dr. Pilny wrapped Spot’s toothy mouth shut with four layers of tape and took her off for
an X-ray. It showed a large gap in the nasal bone. The sinus was filled with pus and
exudates. The cause turned out to be a bone infection that required surgery and long-
term treatment.
Spot’s place on the prep-room table was quickly taken by the body of Snorri. Dr. Pilny
had recommended a necropsy because the owners had two other rabbits.

Snorri’s large intestine looked like an overinflated tire tube. Dr. Pilny explained that it
had stopped moving food along, and the food had fermented and filled the intestine
with gas.
“He got so severely bloated that the intestines leaked bacteria into the abdomen and he
went into sepsis,” Dr. Pilny said. A technician lit an odor-eliminating candle and laid it by
Snorri’s head.
Why Snorri’s intestines stopped working was a mystery. Dr. Pilny took tissue samples to
send to the lab. A custodian made a clay heart with Snorri’s paw prints on it to give to
Commented [8]: This action is very considerate
his owners. because it means a lot to the owners through these
rough times. I know how much this means first hand
because they gave me a similar clay heart when my
dog passed away a couple of years ago.
Dr. Pilny went up to the office to make more calls. Ms. Tibbetts and the vet who was
bitten by Spot, Dr. Jessica Grodio, were there discussing iguana temperaments.
“I always expect an iguana is going to bite,” Ms. Tibbetts said, tossing in an expletive. “I
always assume the worst with them.”
“Well, now I will, too,” Dr. Grodio said, examining her bandaged finger. “I guess it’s been
all nice iguanas so far.”
“There’s no such thing as a nice iguana,” Ms. Tibbetts said. “Remember when Ty bit a
hole in his owner’s face?”

Vicente Vergara, a technician in the office, demonstrated how to give medication

to a hedgehog who had just had an eyeball removed.Credit Karsten Moran for The New
York Times
“I don’t remember that,” Dr. Pilny said.
“What are you — he had like 50 sutures in the shape of an iguana mouth on his cheek,”
Ms. Tibbetts said. “He still has scars.”
Dr. Pilny dialed the phone. “Hey there, it’s Dr. Pilny about Spot,” he said. “So, the plot
thickens. …”
The day wound down. People came to pick up their pets. A tech brought up Elphaba the
hedgehog, whose eye had to be removed after it became infected.
“Hi, beautiful,” said her owner, Daniel Rodriguez. Elphaba wiggled her snout and sniffed
enthusiastically. “Definitely better than yesterday,” he said.
Then Spot’s owner, Chris St. John, came to get her. Mr. St. John, an illustrator who lives
in Hell’s Kitchen, conceded that she could be a handful.
“She’s a tough one, and she can have a little bit of attitude too,” he said. “She can be a
diva.” Still, he said, he loved her very much.

Ms. Tibbetts brought up a taped-shut cardboard box and set it on the table. She showed
the X-ray to Mr. St. John, pointing out the missing chunk of bone: “And these are her
teeth, which found their way into Dr. Grodio’s finger today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mr. St. John said.
“It’s all right,” Ms. Tibbetts said with a laugh.
Mr. St. John unboxed his iguana.
“Baby,” he said softly as she extended her long green legs. He caressed her dewlap.
“Hey cutie patoots!” Ms. Tibbetts said brightly. Ms. Tibbetts told Mr. St. John to get Spot
eating again. “I’m worried about her weight loss.”
“I’ll do it,” Mr. St. John said. “She’s been through a ——” his voice faltered.
“Been through a lot,” Ms. Tibbetts said.
Mr. St. John kissed Spot’s spiny back.
“O.K., girl,” he said, “you’re heading home.”