Your animal needs veterinary care after hours – where do you go? OSU Veterinary Center Has the Answer

(July 20, 2010 Stillwater, OK) – Your animals may be your livelihood or a beloved member of your family. When they need medical care in the middle of the night and your local veterinarian doesn’t have emergency hours, the Boren Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at Oklahoma State University’s (OSU) Center for Veterinary Health Sciences is there for you.

Located at the west end of the OSU Stillwater campus, the veterinary hospital offers a state-of-the-art small animal critical care unit as well as large animal emergency care including an ambulatory truck that makes farm calls within approximately a 30 mile radius.

“The recently renovated Kirkpatrick Foundation Small Animal Critical Care Unit (SACCU) was made possible through private funding including a generous naming gift from the Kirkpatrick Foundation,” explains Dr. Mark Neer, director of the veterinary hospital.

The SACCU is equipped with four climate control oxygen cages, eight telemetry units (wireless EKG monitoring devices), I-stat machines for lab work and a ventilator to help animals who are unable to breathe on their own. There is also a feline room, a quiet room for patients waking from anesthesia, and four very large runs for big breed dogs.
“After hours and on weekends there are always a student, an intern and/or resident and a senior faculty member on site or on call,” says Neer. “All diagnostic capabilities available during regular hours are also available such as X-rays, small and large animal CT scans and laboratory tests. This ensures that all of our emergency patients have the best care possible.”

Each patient’s care is managed by a team consisting of a fourth year veterinary student, an intern and/or resident and a faculty member. In addition, registered veterinary technicians and/or veterinary assistants also assist with the patient’s care.

“At any given time, each animal could have anywhere from three to five people on its veterinary healthcare team,” adds Neer.

According to Neer, the veterinary hospital treats approximately 1,100 emergency cases a year.

“The teaching hospital has a two-fold mission. We are here to serve the people of Oklahoma offering premier veterinary care 24/7 for their pets and animals—large or small—and to train the next generation of veterinarians and specialists,” states Neer. “We are proud to say our graduates are competent, confident, practice-ready veterinarians. In addition, by training our interns and residents we produce many very skilled specialists. In order to do that, we need hospital cases. The more cases we treat, the more experience our students gain in their final year of veterinary school. A healthy emergency case load ensures a variety of veterinary scenarios to learn from and helps ensure that our graduates will be successful in practicing veterinary medicine.”

Remember, when it’s after hours and your animal needs veterinary care, you can count on OSU’s veterinary hospital to provide round the clock care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The Oklahoma State University Center for Veterinary Health Sciences is one of 28 veterinary colleges in the United States and is fully accredited by the Council on Education of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The center’s Boren Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital is open to the public and provides routine and specialized care for small and large animals. It also offers 24-hour emergency care and is certified by the American Animal Hospital Association. For more information, visit www.cvhs.okstate.edu or call (405) 744-7000.

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