Trude Mostue | First Aid Unleashed

    • Pets & Animals

Do you know what to do if your dog gets a paw cut, suffers from diarrhea and vomiting, or eats a plate of chocolate? Veterinarian Trude Mostue shares her best first aid tips.
JEANETTE: I remember rushing home from riding lessons every Wednesday to catch the latest episodes of Vet School and Vets in Practice, where today’s guest was one of the stars. The student from Bristol School of Veterinary Science became well-known in England as well as other countries. Later, she started her own veterinary clinic in Norway, and now she’s leading the vets in FirstVet. Trude Mostue, welcome.
TRUDE: Thank you very much. That was very impressive, actually. All the things you mentioned, I’d almost forgotten all of it because it’s a long time ago. But I have very nice memories from that time. I spent so much of my career on camera. It was very unusual, but at least I can say that I’ve been working as a veterinarian all these years. Now it’s actually 20 years.
JEANETTE: Now you are the boss of I think 15 vets in FirstVet. What is FirstVet?
TRUDE: This is really exciting, actually, because for so many years I’ve been working in the ordinary veterinary practices – which is very exciting and very nice. You meet people and you see the patients and you do diagnostics and you operate. And I still do that one day a week, but times are changing. I’ve been so lucky to take part in the newest of developments when it comes to what we call telemedicine, which is actually that you can have your veterinarian on your mobile.
So if you have a question or if you’re worried about your pet, let’s say, you’re out in the woods or if you’re in the mountains, on a boat or wherever – I actually did have a patient that called me from a sailboat the other day, and they were worried about their dog. It was vomiting. Maybe it was seasick. They were far away from the vet and they called me on video cam.
This service is actually based on consultations via video cam on your mobile, so I consult my patients by talking to them through a camera. Of course, I can’t check the pet physically, but I can tell a lot by just watching a pet and asking the owners to check different things. Also, they have a lot of questions, and I answer all the questions. Instead of googling, they will very often call us and they will feel reassured afterwards whether they should go to the vet or not.
JEANETTE: What are the most common questions you get and the most common injuries you see?
TRUDE: It’s a lot of first aid situations. For instance, one of the most common things people call me about – and the rest of the team, of course – is injuries to paws, like cuts. They’ve been cutting their paws on glass or different things when they’ve been for a walk. Then I have to talk to them and help guide them through how to clean the wound, how to make sure there’s no glass in the wound, and how to bandage the foot. Then I assess the wounds, whether they need to be stitched or not.
This is a quite cool thing to do because when you’re out there, maybe in the middle of the woods – or maybe you’re just home from a walk – it’s great to have someone to talk to and someone to guide you. So I think that’s the most common thing I see.
JEANETTE: Do you have any general guidelines? I know every injury is different, but what should I do if my dog gets a wound in the paw when I’m out hiking, for instance?
TRUDE: I think on a general basis, I always advise my clients maybe after they talk to me, because they always are missing a lot of equipment, I always think you should carry, wherever you are, a little first aid kit, which could include some bandaging, some antibacterial wash, maybe some scissors and some cotton and so on. I think the most important thing to do if you have a clean cut in the paw, and particularly under the paws, is to flush the wound, maybe just with some sterile saline water to make sure there’s no glass or dirt in the wound.
Once you’ve

Do you know what to do if your dog gets a paw cut, suffers from diarrhea and vomiting, or eats a plate of chocolate? Veterinarian Trude Mostue shares her best first aid tips.
JEANETTE: I remember rushing home from riding lessons every Wednesday to catch the latest episodes of Vet School and Vets in Practice, where today’s guest was one of the stars. The student from Bristol School of Veterinary Science became well-known in England as well as other countries. Later, she started her own veterinary clinic in Norway, and now she’s leading the vets in FirstVet. Trude Mostue, welcome.
TRUDE: Thank you very much. That was very impressive, actually. All the things you mentioned, I’d almost forgotten all of it because it’s a long time ago. But I have very nice memories from that time. I spent so much of my career on camera. It was very unusual, but at least I can say that I’ve been working as a veterinarian all these years. Now it’s actually 20 years.
JEANETTE: Now you are the boss of I think 15 vets in FirstVet. What is FirstVet?
TRUDE: This is really exciting, actually, because for so many years I’ve been working in the ordinary veterinary practices – which is very exciting and very nice. You meet people and you see the patients and you do diagnostics and you operate. And I still do that one day a week, but times are changing. I’ve been so lucky to take part in the newest of developments when it comes to what we call telemedicine, which is actually that you can have your veterinarian on your mobile.
So if you have a question or if you’re worried about your pet, let’s say, you’re out in the woods or if you’re in the mountains, on a boat or wherever – I actually did have a patient that called me from a sailboat the other day, and they were worried about their dog. It was vomiting. Maybe it was seasick. They were far away from the vet and they called me on video cam.
This service is actually based on consultations via video cam on your mobile, so I consult my patients by talking to them through a camera. Of course, I can’t check the pet physically, but I can tell a lot by just watching a pet and asking the owners to check different things. Also, they have a lot of questions, and I answer all the questions. Instead of googling, they will very often call us and they will feel reassured afterwards whether they should go to the vet or not.
JEANETTE: What are the most common questions you get and the most common injuries you see?
TRUDE: It’s a lot of first aid situations. For instance, one of the most common things people call me about – and the rest of the team, of course – is injuries to paws, like cuts. They’ve been cutting their paws on glass or different things when they’ve been for a walk. Then I have to talk to them and help guide them through how to clean the wound, how to make sure there’s no glass in the wound, and how to bandage the foot. Then I assess the wounds, whether they need to be stitched or not.
This is a quite cool thing to do because when you’re out there, maybe in the middle of the woods – or maybe you’re just home from a walk – it’s great to have someone to talk to and someone to guide you. So I think that’s the most common thing I see.
JEANETTE: Do you have any general guidelines? I know every injury is different, but what should I do if my dog gets a wound in the paw when I’m out hiking, for instance?
TRUDE: I think on a general basis, I always advise my clients maybe after they talk to me, because they always are missing a lot of equipment, I always think you should carry, wherever you are, a little first aid kit, which could include some bandaging, some antibacterial wash, maybe some scissors and some cotton and so on. I think the most important thing to do if you have a clean cut in the paw, and particularly under the paws, is to flush the wound, maybe just with some sterile saline water to make sure there’s no glass or dirt in the wound.
Once you’ve