Surgery

We are lucky to have several very experienced and skilled surgeons working within Latrobe Veterinary Group, enabling us to offer a wide range of surgical services.

Before booking in you animal for a procedure please read our post on updating your pets microchip details.

Orthopaedic Surgery

Dr Amanda Rhodes-Andrew has extremely well developed skills in surgery, particularly orthopaedic surgery, having undergone the rigorous process of attaining her Membership of the Australian College of Veterinary Surgeons in the chapter of Canine Surgery, in 2006.

In achieving this, she spent one day a week working with a specialist surgeon in Melbourne for eighteen months, in which time she participated in a huge range of surgical procedures. She has since attended further workshops to update on various techniques.

To enable her to perform complex orthopaedic (bone surgery) procedures, the practice is very well equipped — equipment such as electrocautery, suction, drills, a large range of orthopaedic hand tools, and an extensive assortment of implants such as plates, pins and screws are maintained. Other staff are trained and supported by Dr Rhodes-Andrew as they also develop skills in this area. Dr Arden Woodford in particular is developing her orthopaedic surgery skills.

Orthopaedic surgery routinely performed in the practice includes: cruciate repair, patella stablisation and fracture repair. We consider & discuss referral to surgical specialists for procedures we are not routinely performing. We are hoping to have a regular visiting specialist surgeon again in 2019.

Soft Tissue Surgery

Soft tissue surgery often does not require the high level of equipment of orthopaedics, but the skill and patience required can be greater. Dr Rhodes-Andrew shines here also — having performed many procedures such as extensive tumour removals, large skin grafts, liver and lung lobe removals and many intestinal surgery procedures. Dr Kay Mitchell, Dr Arden Woodford and Dr Peter Peisley also have highly developed soft tissue surgical skills.

Soft tissue surgery routinely performed in the practice includes: abdominal foreign body removal (eg. when your dog eats your sock), abdominal tumour removal, skin tumour removal, eye and eyelid procedures including entropion, cherry eye and eyelid tumour removals. We also perform surgery to improve respiratory function in brachycephalic dogs, including opening stenotic nares (tiny nostrils), shortening soft palate & removing everted laryngeal saccules. Again, we consider & discuss referral to specialists when we are not routinely performing similar procedures, or there is increased risk of complications.

General Surgical Procedures (including Desexing)

Our clinics are equipped to carry out all routine and many of the more unusual veterinary surgical procedures and our veterinary surgeons have years of experience under their belts.

Our veterinarians will consider ovary sparing techniques, which requires excellent understanding on the part of the client. We also perform both emergency and elective caesarians, and offer preventative gastropexy at the time of desexing for high bloat risk dogs.

We are committed to making surgical desexing as affordable as possible for the community — without compromising what we regard as essential standards of care, such as IV fluids during anaesthesia and adequate pain relief.