Emergency Service
The emergency service operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to receive referral cases from local veterinarians and animals with serious or life-threatening problems that require immediate attention. The emergency room is staffed by an integrated team of professionals who attend to the patients' emergency and critical care needs. This team is composed of board-certified specialists in emergency and critical care, other senior clinicians, residents, interns, nurses, nurse assistants, volunteers, and receptionists.
The primary goal of the emergency service is to rapidly assess patients to determine the severity of the problem and initiate appropriate stabilization, treatment, and diagnostic testing. The emergency team provides service to the surrounding community and participates in the teaching of veterinary students, interns, residents, and nursing students.
The emergency nursing staff triage all incoming patients and determine the medical priority of the patients to be seen. All patients in life threatening situations are immediately brought to the treatment area where the emergency clinician performs a physical examination and provides emergency stabilization. Patients admitted to the emergency service can be transferred within the hospital to the appropriate department between 7-8 am the following day, transferred to their local veterinarian by 12 noon the following day, or discharged to go home from the emergency service.
Emergency nursing staff have access to state of the art equipment to care for their patients. Monitoring equipment include; Direct and In-Direct Blood Pressure Monitoring, EKG, and Pulse Oximeter. Diagnostic laboratory equipment include; centrifuge, large screen teaching microscope, SCA2000 (PT and PTT), Nova (metabolites,electrolytes, blood gas), Micro Osmometer, FELV/FIV snap kits, Parvo snap kits, Ethylene glycol tests, Toxicology Screens, and Blood typing. Other essential items in our emergency room include large oxygen cages, heating units. cautery unit, and an anesthesia®defibrillator, Bear Hugger machine. Packed red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma for felines and canines are available to our patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.