🐼 Absolute Panda-monium

Hello 👋 

We can bearly contain our excitement for todays edition of Weekend Rounds.

Although our top story this week isn’t exactly about veterinary medicine, we’ve always seen Weekend Rounds as covering the intersection of our profession and the wider world. And this is squarely in the middle of that Venn Diagram…

Bear with us for:

🐼 All Aboard the Panda Express
💊 Antibiotics in diarrhea?
👨‍💻 New GPTs just dropped
🚀 Quick hits

🐼 Panda-monium

This week, three giant pandas were shipped back to Chengdu, China from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute where they had been living on loan since 2000.

25-year-old Mei Xiang, 26-year-old Tian Tian, and their three-year-old cub, Xiao Qi Ji were treated to first class airfare and accommodations on their journey and the internet was loving it (as were we).

The bears traveled in custom made crates, with police escorts, and in a plane specially decorated for the occasion and nicknamed the FedEx Panda Express.

The giant pandas were joined on the 19-hour journey by two zoo keepers, a veterinarian and some of their favorite treats. So the pandas can bring 220 pounds of bamboo, but I have to pay extra if my carry-on is overweight? Seems like a double standard.

We are happy to report that the pandas have arrived safely, and will now quarantine for a month at the Shenshuping Panda Center in the Wolong National Nature Reserve, a UNESCO-recognized area of protected land that’s home to a third of the world’s pandas.

This is far from the first time that Pandas have been on the move, as Panda Diplomacy actually dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The bears were initially offered as gifts to China’s diplomatic partners, but the policy changed in the 1980s, when China began loaning the animals out to existing or prospective trade partners as a way to build trust and promote its image abroad. Host countries often pay an annual fee of about $1M per bear, and agree to return any panda cubs born to China before their fourth birthday.

There are currently about 1,800 pandas living in the wild, and 65 more that are lent out to over 20 countries around the world. If you’re feeling like that’s a lot of pandas - the literal poster child for endangered animals - you are right. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature delisted pandas as an endangered species in 2016 and China followed suit in 2021.

💊 Anti antibiotics

If you haven’t been keeping up on the latest research in the field of dog diarrhea we won’t fault you. But seeing as its a big part of our job in companion animal medicine we thought we would do a quick recap of the latest article from VIN news.

The TLDR: antibiotics are no longer recommended to treat diarrhea in dogs.

For years, antibiotics and particularly metronidazole have been the mainstay of treatment for diarrhea. When our co-founder Ryan started working in vet practice, he remembers receiving a bottle of Tylosin from the vet, just in case his dog started to have any diarrhea. Keeping a bottle on hand for a large breed dog prone to eat stuff seemed to be a reasonable choice.

The issue was first raised at least a decade ago that such practice might lead to antibiotic resistance. And recently the evidence has been growing in the case against the use of antibiotics in dogs. Strong, peer reviewed publications now show that not only do antibiotics not increase the chance of resolution, but also may cause more harm than good.

In a recent study from the Royal Veterinary College VetCompass program, which collects large datasets from primary practices across the UK, in almost 900 dogs treated for diarrhea there was no difference in resolution between those who received antibiotics and those who did not.

Additionally, the evidence is mounting that treatment with antibiotics such as metronidazole, alter the gut microbiome, leading to dysbiosis or infections with other agents such as Giardia, and worsening GI signs.

The problem is that this evidence is counter to the experience of many small animal veterinarians. As one Obi member put it to us this week, “It is hard to do nothing when the dog is going all over the owner’s white carpets.”

And isn’t that just the crux of it? Eliminating the use of antibiotics in cases of diarrhea faces an uphill battle when faced with our tendency to “want to do something” as Scott Weese put it.

So, if not using antibiotics what is the answer for the owner with white carpets? Unfortunately there is no great answer in our opinion. It is easy to say ‘send them home with nothing’, until the owner is irate and dealing with a dog who can’t use a toilet. Ultimately client education and a long road of reprogramming ourselves and the public away from such habits is probably required.

Further studies looking at the efficacy of other solutions such as increasing dietary fiber could help and give veterinarians the opportunity to “do something” when faced with such cases.

So, where do you land? Will the next diarrhea dog you see get antibiotics or are you willing to hold back for the time being.

👨‍💻 New AI, who this?

As mentioned above, Weekend Rounds sits at the intersection of veterinary medicine and the wider world. So we want to make sure we’re keeping you up to date on the important non-vet news stories of the week. This week, we’re covering the latest in AI and trying our best to demystify the topic by explaining it in simple terms.

How we interact with computers was disrupted by OpenAI once again. The makers of the ChatGPT hosted their development day this week and announced some profound changes to their product which have the potential to reshape our daily habits. Just as smartphones changed the landscape of human-technology interaction, the new features of ChatGPT are shifting how people use computers. (By the way, ChatGPT - or a Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer is what OpenAI has named their generative AI large language model product)

The major announcement is the ability to create your own “GPT.” These custom chat bots are currently available for both private and public use and can be trained on your own data. Sam Altman, Open AI CEO, gives the example of a startup mentor trained on lectures he has given. The process is simple and requires no coding - you just explain what you want the chat bot to do and upload any background information.

Possible Veterinary Applications:

Off the top of our heads, here are few ways this could help our field… clinics can create employee onboarding chat bots with the ability to reference any clinic SOPs, or client-facing ones designed to answer the most common questions from clients, with reference to the veterinarians preferred answers.

🚀 Quick Hits

Many veterinarians in Canada are facing extreme burnout and declining mental health [Global]

VCPR requirements fuel state legislative activity [AVMA] 

Thermal Imaging Is a Promising Tool to Measure Stress in Wild Animals [Tufts] 

Zoetis announces donation to support the mental health of Australia’s rural communities [Vet Practice Mag]

Do your clients understand your full expertise? [AVMA]

How animals get their stripes and spots [Phys]