Specialty Surgery

Cancer Surgery

Alta Vista Animal Hospital has the privilege of having both a surgical oncologist (Dr. Liptak) and a medical oncologist (Dr. Bravo) on our staff. Many oncology patients benefit from the services of both surgery and medicine (chemotherapy) departments to be managed successfully. Doctors Liptak and Bravo will often consult on oncology cases together.

Surgical oncology is a combination of having the surgical skills and know-how of different techniques to remove tumors of various descriptions, and also the knowledge and understanding of the biological behavior of a wide range of tumors. This enables the surgeon to best plan how to remove the tumor and decide on the type of follow-up treatments that may be needed to optimize survival time after tumor removal.

Pain Management

Some tumors require the removal of large amounts of tissue and therefore require careful attention to both “preemptive” (medication given to prevent pain before your pet wakes up from anesthesia and experiences pain) and “multimodal” (using different types of pain control at the same time to block the pain pathways at different points in their journey, which makes pain control more effective) pain management. Tumor removal can be anywhere on the body and include both boney and soft tissue.

Intensive Care Unit – 24/7

Alta Vista Animal Hospital is a 24 hour care facility with a veterinarian and support staff on the premises night and day. Simple surface tumors may not require intense postoperative care but more complicated cases will require more intense monitoring or treatment, which can be provided by the doctors and staff in our intensive care unit.