Lsu Veterinary Teaching Hospital

I’ve been to LSU’s small animal teaching hospital but I do not plan on ever returning. Here’s why:
On Dec. 19, 2014, my 13 year old nearly deaf weim Hotstuff underwent surgery to remove his diseased eye. A board certified Veterinary Ophthalmologist named Dr. Filipe Espinheira performed the surgery at LSU and removed Hotstuff’s only good eye by mistake, instead of his diseased eye, even though the correct eye to be removed was the only one prepped/​shaved. You can easily see in pics that there was only one eye shaved — the bad eye. However, the good «unshaved» eye was removed first.
My precious dog was left instantly blind. We still had to have the diseased eye removed as well. After surgery, my dog was lost. We exhausted every single resource available to acclimate him to his new blind life, but he still worsened, finally getting to the point that I could not even console him. I suspect he had canine cognitive disorder brought on by the instant blindness. I felt like the Hotstuff I knew was no longer here. My normally laid back dog was so stressed that he would moan constantly, would not lie down and his temp would spike. Unfortunately, I had to have Hotstuff euthanized on Jan. 14, 2015.
The sunset years that he was enjoying to the fullest were over, cut way too short because of a wrong side surgery performed by Dr. Filipe Espinheira at LSU small animal teaching hospital. I was under the impression that my dog was in safe hands, but this gross negligence still occurred. I later learned that LSU’s small animal hospital had not even required that this surgeon be licensed in the state of Louisiana. He had received his vet degree in another country, so he was not licensed in any state here in the U.S. Another concern I have is the fact that some vet teaching hospitals like LSU do not use a checklist in the operating room. If LSU had used one, that could have prevented this horrible mistake on Hotstuff.
I was offered a sum of money as a settlement for this malpractice, but it also included a non-​disparagement agreement, so I turned it down, because I wanted to be able to tell Hotstuff’s story and let pet owners know about this so that it may never happen again. Multiple people were in the operating room and this egregious error still happened. If they had used some type of checklist, this could have been prevented. For more on his story and what happened, and to view before and after pictures, you can check out his Facebook page here:
See my website at
Pet owners, please do your homework before leaving your pet at a teaching hospital.

My poor doggie needed back surgery. The staff was friendly & concerned. They evaluated her & she will have an MRI & go straight into surgery. Pricey but they do offer financing interest free for 12 months.
Emergency clinic for small animals.