Around 6 months ago Simon and I had just finished working up a lame horse, and were discussing the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis with the horse’s owner. We felt the horse had a good prognosis for returning to soundness, but it became evident that all three of us had different opinions as to what a “good prognosis” actually meant. It was as a result of this conversation that we started thinking about how opinions of prognosis might differ between different owners and different vets, and the potential need to clarify what we mean. Communication is a cornerstone of veterinary practice, and if we all mean different things by the same words then the aim of clarity cannot be achieved.

After 6 months of hard labour (5 months of Alex procrastinating followed by a couple of weeks of work!), we have devised a study that hopes to clarify some of these issues. In the form of an online survey, we hope to summate the attitudes of both vets and owners toward prognosis, and hope that we can develop a rational approach to communicating it. This is the point at which we need your help – the more animal owners who fill in the survey, the better and the more useful the results will be. If you could fill in the survey then we would be delighted – if you could spread the word to other animal owners (owners of small animals, horses and farmers are welcome) then we would be ecstatic!

Please click on the following link to take the survey, and pass it to as many of your animal owning friends as possible:

www.equine-vets.com/survey

Many thanks in anticipation of your help with this study!