Purr Podcast

Dr. Panos Xenoulis is one of the world's most famous pancreas experts, especially when we talk about cats (and that is all we do!). Panos lives in Greece and did most of his graduate work in the US and worked at Texas A&M for more than 10 years. We discuss how cats are different in showing signs of pancreatitis and discuss the most common tests to diagnose this disease. Whoever thought that pancreatitis is not common in the cat, listen up! The topic was requested by a faithful listener, so thank you for that suggestion.

The second episode of the purrpodcast with cohost Dr. Kelly StDenis and the awesome Dr. Sheri Ross talking about feline CKD. After discussing how to diagnose a cat with chronic kidney disease, we deep dive now into therapy options. Dr. Sheri tells us how to treat early kidney disease and what we can do when the disease progresses. The good news is that cats with CKD can survive a long time with the appropriate treatment!

I am so excited to introduce my co-host Dr. Kelly StDenis for this podcast. kelly jumped in for Susan for 2 podcasts. We are interviewing Dr. Sheri Ross and talk about her soul cats, early renal disease in cats, and how you can recognize chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cat kidney diagnostics. A great episode, full of exciting cat news.

Another great episode with Dr. Karen Perry, a social media star, and super orthopedic surgeon. This time we are talking specific cool cases that she published and the top five orthopedic diseases in cats. Can you guess what those are?

Dr. Karen Perry is our 80th purrpodcast guest. Karen is an amazing and social media-active orthopedic surgeon that loves cat surgery. Karen is present on all social media platforms and posts great cases online. Her social media handle is @karenlperryk. We discuss clinical signs of cats with orthopedic diseases and how to score chronic pain. Karen gives some really good tips on what to use for chronic pain in cats too.

The awesome Dr. Jessica Vogalsang is back and will answer the major cliff hanger she left us with last week. How do you deal with negative reviews, don't argue specifics and keep it short and take the discussion offline? Susan explains why she is the cat police, fighting for cat messages everywhere and equal rights for cats and dogs. Dr. V explains why telling stories is so important in your practice. What a great episode.

Dr. Jessica Vogelsang, a famous book author, blogger, podcaster, and storyteller, went into general practice directly after finishing vet school, where she found out that she had no surgeon’s hands. Dr. V. wrote a great book called ‘All dogs go to Kevin’ off which she did her own audiobook version in an Anthony Bourdain voice. We discuss how important storytelling is in veterinary medicine and how she got to write the book. At the end, we talk about how to deal with reviews (especially the bad ones)

We talk with Dr. Nicole Erhart about oral cat squamous carcinoma and other tumors that are difficult to treat. The well-being of the cat, the owner and you are super important. An example is injection site sarcoma in the cat. We tend to see them a lot less but if they are presented they need a challenging multimodal approach. In this process, Nicole also feels that self-care is an important step. Communication and de-escalation training are important steps in your education and looking for help is ok with difficult cases and clients.

Dr. Nicole Ehrhart is a surgical oncology professor at Colorado State University and heads up the relatively new Center for Healthy Aging where she leads a team of experts to a one health approach to aging. We are discussing stem cell therapy and focus on the good, the bad, and the ugly. We learn new terms like stem cell exhaustion a phenomenon that describes, as we age, the decrease of the number and function of stem cells. We also talk about her passion for surgical oncology and what role CSU plays in the one health approach to tumor treatments.

Another great episode with Dr. Phil Fox, the famous cardiologist from AMC in NYC. He and a great team of colleagues are working on new cardiology guidelines for cats. He talks, for instance, about the treatment of asymptomatic cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, are there any drugs that we should give? After this, we talk about what you should treat cats with that are symptomatic.

Dr. Phil Fox is an amazing cardiologist at the Animal Medical Center in NYC, where he sees both clients and does research in cardiac diseases. In 2018 he published a landmark paper about feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with over 1000 afflicted acts and 700 controls. This disease, like in humans, is most likely caused by a genetic mutation that is undiscovered as of yet. The most common clinical signs are arrhythmias, sudden death, congestive heart failure, and blood cots that are fatal. What an excellent episode and thank you dr. Fox.

In the second episode with Dean Lairmore, we talk about how to be proud to be a veterinarian, wicked viruses, and how it is to be a Dean. He is an inspiration for people that work around him and currently is the ‘boss’ of the no. 1 veterinary medicine college in the world. He explains how he creates an environment that is supportive and where creativity is key. Behind all the success is good strategic planning. Dean Lairmore talks about one of the worst situations he had to deal with too and how he handled this situation and how he can focus on being thankful. In the end we talk about AAVMC, the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges. Thank you, Dean Lairmore!

A first of first for the purrpodcast, Dean Michael D. Lairmore from the University of Davis California. Yes, we have a real Dean in our podcast! He is famous for being an excellent academic leader but also for his social footprint. He is super active on social media. He describes himself as an early adapter. His social media career started by trial and error but after he started setting his goals for the platform he uses; he has been very successful. He is personable and has some great tips.

The terrific Dr. Ann Hohenhaus, medical oncologist at the Animal Medical Center in NYC is back on the podcast talking about cats with multiple problems. Giving drugs to cats is not easy and overprescribing drugs to cats is not in the best interest of the cat and owner, alike. Limit your prescriptions and rank your drugs! Decide which one is the most important and that one should go in first. Thanks, Ann, you are the best

This podcast was taped a while ago but is still so relevant. Dr. Ann Hohenhaus, the famous internal medicine specialist and cat lover at the Animal Medical Center in NYC talk to us about how cats seem to collect diseases especially when they get older. These cats are quite a challenge to diagnose and who does not like a good puzzle? Do you know what an emerging lymphoma is? Add on a bit of diabetes, a snuff of pancreatitis, and a wife of CKD and voila here is your senior cat patient. Dr. Ann is truly a veterinary gerontologist, a person that focuses on diseases of elderly cats and how we can treat them without being a detriment to the cat and owner.