Emergency and Critical Care

Our Emergency Doctors

MVA’s emergency and critical care services are available 24/7/365. We offer our veterinary clients the highest-level of emergency veterinary medicine, emergency veterinary surgery, and critical care for their pets.

IF YOUR PET IS EXPERIENCING AN EMERGENCY, please call your primary veterinarian. Many veterinarians refer emergency calls to us in the evenings, or on weekends and holidays.

Also please call us at 610-666-1050 before coming. Even in a dire emergency, the team may be able to suggest immediate first aid measures, and provide specific travel directions to the hospital. In addition, our team will be able to prepare for your animal’s arrival and care based on this initial estimation of your pet’s situation.

Our team of Emergency Doctors work together with our in-house specialists, and referring veterinarians, to provide the highest standard of care to our patients. In partnership with the emergency room, our intensive care unit (ICU) is staffed by Criticalists certified by the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, as well as dedicated and experienced ICU nurses. Our ICU unit is staffed 24/7/365, which enables us to provide round-the-clock monitoring and treatment of critically ill pets.

Like a human emergency room, we work on a triage basis to decide which patients are in most immediate need of care. Unfortunately, like the ER there is often a wait. Our patients are triaged upon arrival. We see patients based on the life threatening nature of their problems. It is possible that patients who arrive after you will be seen first. It is possible that patients who are seen before you may not appear to be injured or sick. However, there are often things happening to these patients that require immediate attention. This is why we triage.

What to Expect:

We get an initial estimation of your pet’s situation from your phone call to us.
If your pet is not in an immediate crisis situation, we will ask you to complete our Admissions Form. One of our nurses will assess your pet as quickly as possible.
Pets with life-threatening conditions are brought immediately into our treatment area. We understand that separating you from your pet may be very upsetting. We ask for your patience while we begin treatment. In these cases, the doctor will stabilize your pet before discussing the condition with you. Clients are not allowed into the treatment area during this time.

Meet Our Emergency Doctors

Hear from three of MVA’s Emergency Doctors as they speak about the specialty.

Transcript

Dr. Marisa Suvannavejh: “On the emergency service we work as a team. We all are passing notes between each other trying to make sure that there is continuity of care between all of our patients and we work with a specialist too to try to help us to get more information about our patients and to make sure that we’re giving everything the best care that we could possibly have.”

Dr. Owen Fink: “On the emergency service we’re pretty comfortable handling a lot of routine cases but when things get complicated or certainly we’re getting over our heads we consult or we transfer cases to the specialists.”

Dr. James Buckman: “There’s a great resource pool here. If I don’t know how to do something I can go ask the next person who’s done it many, many times before and vice versa and we all work together well that way. It’s very easy.”

Dr. Owen Fink: “We focus a lot I think as a practice and on the emergency service on communicating with clients very regularly and it’s actually very, I hear commonly from owners, ‘Oh I wish that when I’d been in the hospital or when my human family member had been in the hospital they had as good strong communication with the doctors.’”

Dr. Marisa Suvannavejh: “The way that I think about every single patient that comes into this hospital is the way that I would want my own animal to be treated. So any animal that’s here is gonna get the same care that I would provide to my own pet. I know that they’re family members. So, any animal who’s here in the hospital is going to be comfortable and well cared for.”