Dogwood’s internal medicine service is led by a board-certified veterinary internist (a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, or ACVIM) and a board-eligible internal medicine doctor who has completed an ACVIM-approved residency and is eligible to sit for board examination. Both have completed advanced training well beyond veterinary school and have the experience to handle complex, uncommon, and long-running cases.

A referral from your primary veterinarian is helpful because it lets us coordinate records and prior workup, but it isn’t required. Families can request an internal medicine consult directly.

Endoscopy uses a flexible camera passed through a natural opening (mouth, nose, urethra, rectum) to look directly inside the body without surgery. It’s performed under general anesthesia and is very safe at a hospital with a board-certified anesthesiologist and trained anesthesia technicians. Most pets go home the same day.

Both. Endoscopy is often used for diagnosis (taking biopsies, looking for tumors or ulcers) but it’s also therapeutic — we routinely remove foreign material from the esophagus, stomach, and nasal cavity through the scope without surgery. Cystoscopy can also be used to remove bladder stones non-invasively in many cases.

Internal medicine diagnosis is usually stepwise. The initial workup — bloodwork, imaging, and sometimes endoscopy — often begins on the first visit, but the final diagnosis frequently depends on results that return over the following days or weeks (biopsy pathology, reference-lab testing, or response to a diet or medication trial). Our team will lay out the expected timeline at consultation.

It depends on the diagnosis. Some conditions are cured outright. Others — like diabetes, kidney disease, or Cushing’s — are managed long-term in partnership with your primary veterinarian. We design recheck plans to minimize visits while staying ahead of any changes.