Confronting triage challenges

The ability to accurately and rapidly assessing an patient in an emergency situation makes the difference between a good veterinary technician and an excellent one, according to Erica Brandt, CVT, VTS (ECC), hospital director at WestVet in Meridian, Idaho.

In an interview with dvm360, Brandt discussed Surviving Triage: Tales of an ER Tech, her educational session being presented Saturday, March 15, at the 2025 Fetch dvm360 Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. The session highlights the importance of recognizing a true emergency and immediate interventions.

The following is a transcript of the video:

Erica Brandt, CVT, VTS (ECC): In my presentation Surviving Triage, what I really want technicians to take away is [that] we've gone through a really rough time with communicating with clients, through the pandemic and those types of things. And I just want to reiterate we are all going through the same types of concerns, and troubleshooting that [what] we're trying to do to reestablish our relationship with clients and get back into those rooms. And then, it's not easy. It's not easy to look at a patient and decide, is this patient truly having an emergency, and what next steps do we need to take? So, I want a big collaborative room, a safe space to say this is a very difficult thing that we do, and here are some tips that I use to make it a little bit easier.