http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2010/02/unintended-lesson-about-charles-darwin.html

Cheers, and good luck!

Just noticed it has gone down 1000 places in the bestseller chart since yesterday. just outside the top 6500 now!

Thanks for sharing! As I have already said, I am the editor of this book not the writer. I am therefore unable to comment on the content of the book. If you wish to email me (gary@bubblecow.co.uk) with a constructive review of Matthew’s book I would gladly post this for my reader’s to read.

Gary

Dear Gary Smailes,

clearly Mr Watkinson has strong feelings on his former colleagues within the veterinary profession, of which I am one. I find it interesting that he has kept those views to himself until he was able to gain most significant advantage from doing so.
I have every sympathy with ‘whistle-blowers’ who have the courage in any profesison to speak out for their beliefs, and many professions have benefitted from their actions. However, the cynical hoarding of such views until one is able to benefit personally from their use should cause the reader to carefully question their authors motives. If Mr Watkinson felt so strongly that he had to speak out in defence of th nations pets, how could he live with himself for waiting so long (until conicidentally he needed a sniff of the oxygen of publicity. If he genuinely believes that in speaking out he is going to relieve sufferring of pets under vets care, then he must lay their continued sufferring whilst he was waiting for his publication date to arrive, at his own door.
I speak as a vet who ensures that I offer the range of treatment options to all my clients, and pride myself on transferring my clinical knowledge to the client so that they can make as informed a decision as possible.
Today I have been presented with three different acute spinal trauma cases, all in moderate to severe pain; in each case I discussed fully likely survival / recovery rates, costs, and when asked what I would do if the pet were my own, answered honestly. One dog presented with a broken and severely displaced spine, (incidentally he was insured). I made him comfortable with very strong painkilers while I discussed his condition with his distraught owners. I advised he had a very slim chance of recovery, and that if he was mine I would put him to sleep, and the owners followed my advice. My discussion included the full range of outcomes, showing photos of a patient with a broken back runnign on the beach post-surgery, and another spinal in-patient recovering in our kennels; however, given the severity of his injury I still recommended euthanasia as the action I would take if he was my own pet.
Another dog presented, again in great pain, with a slightly less severe injury and I advised he had a better chance of recovery with immediate surgery; we operated, and he is already doing incredibly well, his pain has been relieved and this evening he can already tentatively stand, and the veterinary and nursing staff involved have shared in the owners delight. Personally I am proud of my efforts and those of my team in all cases, and we have relieved sufferring for each of these patients- in different ways, but appropriately for each.
I do not recognise Mr Watkinson’s jaundiced view of the entire profession I am proud to serve in, and I am saddened that he has felt that my work, and the work of my thousands of colleagues, together with our profession’s good name should be exploited merely to top up his book sales.
Yours sincerely,
Colin Whiting BVSc CertSAS MRCVS

Since I didn’t write the Daily Mail article, or even link to it in my post, I feel unqualified to ‘defend’ the writer’s comments in that article. However, what I was suggesting is that since this blog post is about the ‘book’ and its birth, I would be more that happy to publish a blog post that is a review of the book.

If you read the post carefully you will see that I don’t pass a judgement on Matthew’s work. In fact, I worked with the author of the book for more than six months and he still has no idea of my feelings of his ideas.

Gary

I assume that you have not read the book in question, which is the topic of this post. In fact the topic of this post is the process of bringing a book to publication. I once again extend my invite for you to provide a constructive review of Matthew’s work and ideas.

Mr Koch.

Mr Watkinson has chosen to portray the veterinary profession essentially as money-grabbing creatures who will, and I quote The Daily Mail, “squeeze the most money out of treating family pets”. In light of that comment, I find it interesting that he has chosen a marketing strategy which so closely mirrors it. The negative experience he claims to have gained at the Royal Veterinary College, described in the opening paragraphs of the article, has clearly served him well.

Mr Watkinson seems to have no qualms about slandering the veterinary profession in order to generate publicity for his book. This automatically disqualifies him from the moral high ground he seems to have adopted. Would you listen to lectures on ethics from a person in clear breach of them?

Mr Watkinson’s view of the veterinary profession is extremely short sighted and self-indulgent. Rather than vilify veterinary surgeons in national newspapers, how about working to improve the profession from within? That would require thought, dedication, passion for helping the animals we are priviliged to treat, hard work – and no claim to fame or playing the hero in print. Which path did Mr Watkinson choose? And is he willing, or able, to examine his reasons why?

Sincerely,

Dalya Koch BVSc MVS CertVA MRCVS
Veterinary surgeon and darn proud to be one