This is an extraordinary story of a Korean/American veterinarian who was found to have been practicing a declawing operation using newly acquired laser equipment on a cat that was at the clinic to be euthanized. Update: this article was written about 12-13 years ago. I don’t have the exact date. It is therefore an interesting piece of American veterinary history but because it is so outrageous, I felt I needed to check the article and refresh it and also republish it to today’s date.
The vet
The vet, Byoung Hah at Angels Care Animal Hospital in Upland and Pomona, had recommended to the cat’s caretaker that Sachi, her cat be euthanised. That was on 29th October 2007.
Mr Hah, in violation of common decency and morality and against normal practices, decided to declaw Sachi using laser declawing equipment that had been newly acquired. Obviously, there was no instruction to do this nor was there a reason to do it in the interests of the or the cat’s owner.
I can only suppose as referred to in the title that Hah had decided to take the opportunity to practice a declawing operation using the new equipment with which he was probably unfamiliar.
Sachi was an ideal subject as even if he screwed up it would not matter because the cat was going to be killed anyway. He did not inform the client – the cat’s caretaker. We don’t know whether Dr Hah (as he then was before being struck off) allowed the cat to wake up after the operation and feel the pain. If he did, of course, that would make what he did doubly disgraceful.
It appears that he cut the cat as there were cuts on the eye and abdomen. We have a fellow hospital employee to thank for providing evidence of this grisly and grossly indecent behavior.
Mr Hah was also in violation of other elements of a vet’s code of practice and was struck off.
He has returned to Korea to teach! The new vet who has replaced Mr Hah has rectified the problems.
This is the original article: Upland vet’s license revoked
The original story does not spell out what I think was happening but common-sense dictates that my presumption that he was practicing using new laser equipment on a cat destined for death must be the most obvious deduction.
Do you think other vets have done similar things?
Added information – updated Jan 1, 2022
Because I’m republishing the page, I am going to take the opportunity to fill it out a bit with some more detail. These are allegations even at this late stage because I don’t know the full extent of the charges and how they were dealt with.
The veterinarian in question, worked out Angels Care Animal Hospital in Upland and Pomona. His licence was revoked by the California Veterinary Medical Board. The reasons for being struck off also included improper record keeping and using expired drugs.
Mary Coffman, the president of Helping out Pets Every Day, an Upland-based animal rescue charity said that “This smacks of animal cruelty to me because this is someone who takes an oath to be a veterinarian and if you’re reading what it says he was cutting corners”.
What I am reading is that he wasn’t cutting just corners but being highly immoral and cruel. I suppose her reference to cutting corners might be to the failure to keep proper records.
At the tribunal where he was struck off a board-certified small animal veterinarian, Walter Holtan, gave evidence. He said that it is standard practice to euthanise a pet immediately after the owner provides the vet with consent to do so.
In this instance, the owner of the cat in question had asked Hah to euthanise his/her cat. He did not do it immediately. He kept the cat alive in the hospital for three days.
After the client had visited and left her cat behind, an employee found that the cat had cuts on the abdomen and eye. One of the cuts had been sutured.
The cat was eventually euthanised and this employee took photographs as evidence.
A hospital employee testified that during the three days the cat was kept alive she saw Hah perform a declawing procedure with newly acquired laser equipment.
It wasn’t just the callous immorality of performing the practice declawing operation which resulted in this man being struck off. There were numerous other citations, 18 in all including reusing unsterilised equipment which resulted in animals acquiring infections which they should not have acquired. And he repackaged out of date medicines into new boxes, apparently.
The link on this page to the report is stomach churning really because it shows a terrible attitude by a veterinarian towards animal welfare. It seems to me that his behaviour cost the lives of some animals in his care. I don’t know whether the clients received compensation. They should have but they probably didn’t.
Laser declawing – Photo copyright http://www.marvistavet.com
I have published a photo from this page of the Mar Vista Animal Medical Center website – thank you. This hospital did do declawing operations but were banned under the Los Angeles declawing ban.
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