Bad Vet Clinic Experience

I want to apologize for this long post but I wanted to share a very unfortunate experience I had with a vet clinic in Seoul (Gangnam) recently. Two months ago, I adopted a beautiful 7 month old Golden Retriever from a shelter in Pohang. The vet clinic I took him to (not the particular doctor who treated my dog) came highly recommended from members of ARK. I’m writing this as a warning to all pet owners to please be vigilant about the treatment recommended by your vet and to seek a second opinion if at all in doubt.

About two weeks after receiving vaccination shots, my dog developed a lump at the vaccination site on his back. Panicked, I immediately took him to the vet and she wanted to keep him overnight and surgically remove the lump the next day. She told me that while the biopsy results wouldn’t come in for 10 days, it was necessary to remove the lump immediately. Along with being neutered, he had his lump removed. The fee for the lump removal was 400,000 won.

Soon after, I discovered that a couple of friends I had had similar lumps develop in their dogs after vaccinations and their vets had recommended no course of action be taken as the lumps would most likely go away on their own, which they did. I called a different vet clinic to see what they generally do in this type of situation and was told that typically, vaccination lumps are not removed as they go away on their own, sometimes months later, so they take a “wait and observe” approach recommending massaging the lump.

I wanted to trust that my dog did not have an unnecessary surgery leaving him with a 6 inch wound and since I’m not a vet, I thought perhaps there was something about my dog’s situation that prompted her to think immediate surgery was necessary. I told the vet about the conversations I had had. She responded with “in small dogs, lumps can be massaged but in big dogs, especially Golden Retrievers, they must be removed immediately (a complete fabricated lie), I informed her that my friends’ dogs were both large breed dogs.

She then says that I didn’t tell her about the injections he had received when in fact, I had told her twice. I even called her less than 5 minutes after I left the clinic to tell her again that he had received shots in the same area because she seemed to dismiss it the first time I told her. She responded “I have considered that already”.

At that time, I thought it could be coincidence that the lumps were at the injection sites but I was really worried and wanted to make sure she had any and all information that might be useful in determining the nature of his lump. When she said that I never told her about the injection she had received, I reminded her of the conversation we had on the phone replaying it word-by-word because it was clear to me that she was trying to squirm her way out of any responsibility. She then tried to absolve herself of the responsibility saying that it really wasn’t her sole decision to do the surgery. It was an unbelievable exchange of untruths and excuses.

Shortly after his surgery, my dog developed an identical lump to the one he had removed by this vet. His new vet confirmed what the other vets had said; that it was a vaccination lump that does not require surgery. However, the area where he had surgery is not healing properly. He developed severe seroma at the surgical site and has had to have 3 drainage tubes inserted because the area has blown up about 15 times the size of his original lump and was filling up with fluid.

We have been going to the vet daily for the last 2 weeks to have it drained. As I wait for him in the waiting area, I hear him crying and yelping in pain. It is now infected and he may have to undergo a third surgery if they can’t get the infection under control. He is now hospitalized. I have so far paid over 800,000 won for pain and suffering the little guy should never have had to deal with in the first place.

Angry and disgusted doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling right now. Please watch over your pets because while I still believe most vets have the best interest of your animals at heart, I learned the hard way that some don’t or perhaps are not competent enough to do so.