Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care Expansion

Once, animals who were hit by cars, poisoned, or injured by larger animals faced few opportunities beyond basic first aid. Today, the science of emergency and critical care medicine has become one of the fastest growing specialties in the veterinary profession.

The MU Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital has been at the forefront of teaching the latest techniques in this area and providing some of the best post-operative surgical and after-accident care. The VMTH's ICU features many of the same capabilities as a human hospital trauma center--from a variety of pumps for fluid and medication delivery to wireless telemetry to monitor patients' vital signs.

The growth of the program and its acceptance by animal owners has stressed the abilities of the emergency area, landlocked in the middle of the teaching hospital. There is a need for an endowment to fund at least three more ICU veterinary technicians (to allow better 24/7 staffing and make patients even more comfortable), money to update aging equipment (such as an oxygen cage, patient incubator, and various monitors) and buy new equipment (such as a computerized status monitor for each critical patient), and more space to expand capabilities.

This last need, which will cost between $250,000 and $300,000, would add more floor space to the ICU area and create a separate area to manage emergency patients so that handling crises does not interfere with ongoing care of critical patients housed in the ICU. The added space would also allow for additional surgery suites, space for technicians to perform their administrative duties, and allow better equipment storage for fast retrieval in an emergency.