Controversies and Decision-Making in Small Animal Soft Tissue Surgery: A Case-Based Review with Dr Robert McCarthy

As a clinical surgeon working in both academia and private practice, Dr McCarthy receives many clinically relevant questions from general practitioners daily. Some questions appear repeatedly, suggesting both that the clinical problem is common in private practice and a general lack of training by teaching institutions on these specific issues. In this lecture, frequently asked questions from private practitioners will be answered and discussed in a case-based approach.

Included in the discussion will be topics such as:
- How to best manage a recurrent foreign body abscess when advanced imaging is either unavailable or not financially feasible.
- Treatment of stenotic nares in cats with a method that is both simple and safe.
- A novel method of managing wound tension during skin closure without flaps and grafts.
- Surgical management of mammary gland tumours in dogs
- Management of brachycephalic obstructive syndrome in dogs: Soft palate resection techniques and “Snoretox”
- Urethral prolapse in dogs
- Episioplasty as a method to manage incontinence in dogs

The goal of this lecture is to provide improved understanding of several soft tissue surgical conditions frequently encountered in private practice, as well as offer some simple methods and techniques to manage these conditions that practitioners can use to improve their surgical armamentarium.