While your general practice veterinarian can diagnose and treat many health problems and handle many routine emergencies, certain situations require the care of a doctor who has had specialized, intensive training in handling emergency and critical care for your pet. An emergency and critical care specialist typically works in tandem with your general practice veterinarian on a referral basis, as well as with any other needed specialists, until the emergency is resolved.
A board certified specialist in emergency and critical care is a veterinarian who has obtained intensive, additional training in treating life-threatening conditions. An emergency and critical care specialist can help in the following kinds of cases, among others:
Traumatic injuries of all kinds:
If your veterinarian does not handle after hours emergencies, then he or she probably already has a referral relationship in place with a local or regional emergency hospital. You can also look for emergency specialists in your area on the ACVECC website. You can be assured that a veterinarian who knows when and where to refer you and your pet for emergency or critical care is one that is caring and committed to ensuring that your pet receives the highest standard of care for his or her problem.
Any of the following situations can be considered an emergency:
While an emergency is unfolding, or throughout recovery from a serious illness or accident, ongoing diagnostic and therapeutic care and constant monitoring of your pet's condition are required. Many emergency and critical care facilities offer 24-hour supervision of critically ill pets and, just as in human hospitals, may have dedicated Intensive Care and Critical Care Units (ICU/CCU). Such facilities are equipped to provide oxygen therapy, cardiac monitoring, blood transfusions, and nutritional support. Such facilities also typically have advanced diagnostic capabilities onsite, such as ultrasound and echocardiography.
Many emergency hospitals work on a referral basis with general practitioners. In some cases, your pet will only be referred to the emergency service for after-hours care. In other cases, your pet may be in the care of the emergency and critical care specialist for the duration of the emergency and recovery, but then referred back to your general practitioner veterinarian for follow up and routine care.
Analgesia is the relief from pain. Pain can be difficult to assess in animals due to their inability to communicate directly about what they are experiencing. Instead, we must rely on indirect signs of pain.... Read more
In our hospital’s state-of-the-art ICU, we have the capability of doing intermittent or continuous central venous pressures to estimate blood volume in our patients. We are also capable of doing continuous EKG so that we can monitor for arrhythmias in our patients under anesthesia for surgical, endoscopic, and dental procedures. .... Read more
In our hospital’s state-of-the-art ICU, we have the capability of doing intermittent or continuous central venous pressures to estimate blood volume in our patients. We are also capable of doing continuous EKG so that we can monitor for arrhythmias in our patients under anesthesia for surgical, endoscopic, and dental procedures. Continuous EKG monitoring is also performed for patients with heart disease and critical patients in our ICU, and for patients that are heavily sedated for procedures such as laceration repairs and other minor surgeries.... Read more
Direct blood pressure monitoring can be performed in patients under anesthesia and patients on long-term ventilation. We are able to place patients on a mechanical ventilator when under anesthesia for surgical procedures. Long-term ventilation is performed in our ICU for patients that have severe respiratory or neurologic disease.... Read more
Our Critical Care Department offers hemodialysis for the management of acute or chronic pet kidney failure. The kidneys have many roles, including filtering waste products, drugs, and toxins out of the body and when the kidneys fail these normal waste products build up to toxic levels. Intravenous fluids may help flush these toxins out of the body, however, when this type of medical management is unsuccessful, dialysis is indicated to help remove these toxins.... Read more
Direct blood pressure monitoring can be performed in patients under anesthesia and patients on long-term ventilation. We are able to place patients on a mechanical ventilator when under anesthesia for surgical procedures. Long-term ventilation is performed in our ICU for patients that have severe respiratory or neurologic disease.... Read more
Supplemental oxygen can be administered by nasal or transtracheal methods. Our hospital can provide this to our critical patients when an oxygenated environment provided by our oxygen cages is not sufficient. .... Read more
Our hospital utilizes pulse-oximetry on our patients and continuous end-tidal CO2 monitoring is available to monitor patients under anesthesia, on long-term mechanical ventilation, and also as a monitor during CPR. .... Read more
Transfusion therapy refers to the infusion of donated whole blood or components of blood (such as plasma) into a patient. A variety of conditions may warrant a transfusion, such as acute blood loss from trauma or hemolytic anemia; clotting defects such as with hemophilia; or blood protein deficiencies as in serious intestinal and kidney conditions. Blood products may be taken from a hospital blood donor program or from a third party veterinary blood bank.... Read more
