Milo's Law - Veterinarians can treat exotics only with specific training and specific diagnostics

Hello,
I am proposing a new law today to protect the welfare of exotic pets also commonly referred to as pocket pets listed under some veterinary practices who are often being seen, misdiagnosed, or are receiving very basic substandard level of care, at these practices. These pets require specific treatment that many general practitioner veterinarians lack knowledge, training, equipment, tools to diagnose, take care of, or treat properly yet they are allowed to continue practicing and treating these pets despite it. Due to my own awful experience which resulted in the loss of my pet's life and from what I continue to see, I often see general practitioner veterinarians or veterinarians who see exotic animals as clients , offer services to these exotic pet's while often lacking the knowledge and training on how to treat and properly diagnose these pet's conditions and many times they are not running through the proper diagnostics, and not utilizing or having the required equipment to help save these animals lives. This often leads to misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and not always referring exotic patients out to specialists or to specialists that have the required equipment and knowledge to run these diagnostics for these animals. I urge every state's Office Of Professions who oversees each and every state's education board and who is responsible for veterinary licensing to make it a requirement for any veterinarian, general practitioner or not, who chooses to see exotic animals at their practice, to be required to be knowledgeable about all conditions and ailments that can and may affect these exotic species if they wish to treat said patients (rabbits,guinea pig,lizards,sugar gliders,ferrets,etc) and make it mandatory for any veterinary facility choosing to treat exotic patients to have and to always require and utilize diagnostic tools such as culture and sensitivity tests so they may dispense appropriate medications for specific cultured bacteria, C-T, X-rays, bloodwork, IV Catheters, and make it mandatory that these exotic pet's be immediately referred to a facility that has the equipment to treat said ailments that commonly affect these animals if they cannot diagnose or treat the patient appropriately themselves. When it comes to the rules of OPD as well, the basic minimum standard of care for exotic animals should also require all of these things to have been done as the basic minimum diagnostics and standard of care for exotic pets as their requirements are vastly different from small pet's and no veterinarian should be practicing on these animals without the required skillset, knowledge, and without using the proper tools and diagnostic equipment and having said knowledge to use said tools and diagnostic equipment and it should be mandatory that they immediately refer these pet's to veterinarians with said tools and knowledge if they do not have them immediately, as trying to practice outside of their scope without the knowledge necessary should not be allowed and often results in the loss of these animals lives and delays their proper care and treatment.

Milo was my bunny whose life was lost when a general practitioner failed to use a flashlight to look into his ear, failed to send a culture of the visible pus in his ear out for a culture, failed to take a culture of the discharge from his nose which would later go on to infect and affect his ear, failed to refer him to a properly equipped facility, failed to inform me they could not run specific tests only after his life was lost, all because they failed to take a culture and properly treat him for an inner ear infection.

I continue to sadly see this happening to many exotic pet's like Milo or where the owner took their exotic pet to be seen but the person seeing their pet had zero knowledge as to what was going on or misdiagnosed them entirely or because of their lack of knowledge about the said exotic animal, they did not order a require test, or did not treat the exotic animal at the mininmum recommended length of time with an antibiotic. As these exotics are quite different some of them require a month of antibiotics minimum and this was true for my bunny Milo. Milo did not receive the correct antibiotic or diagnosis and due to the wrong diagnosis which was visible to any person's eye, his life was lost. I intend for no more lives to be lost this way. These lives cannot be lost this way anymore if such knowledge of such conditions and testing are made mandatory, because no one would want their exotic pet being seen by just anyone. They want someone they can trust and who will know what to do.

I hope you will all please seriously consider making this mandatory in memory of Milo and all other exotic pet's who did not receive the appropriate treatment or until it was too late.