Veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and administrators demonstrated the university’s leadership in advancing trauma patient care at the recent Veterinary Committee on Trauma (VetCOT) Veterinary Trauma & Critical Care Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
VetCOT, founded in 2013 by CSU Small Animal Critical Care faculty member Dr. Kelly Hall, is supported by the American College of Emergency and Critical Care. VetCOT hosts a network of more than 25 veterinary trauma centers and maintains the Veterinary Trauma Registry with nearly 60,000 dog and cat trauma cases logged. Hall and CSU staff member Rachel Fink organized the conference, which brought more than 100 veterinary and human medical professionals from around the world to Caesar’s Palace for the two-day event.
Jocelyn Pronko, Critical Care Service Program Manager at the CSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital, was the inaugural winner of the Alison Wilson Award for Best Presentation by a Veterinary Technician. Her talk highlighted a case of a puppy that was hit by a car, requiring a massive blood transfusion, and was eventually discharged home to her family. Pronko reports that the dog, now 2 years old, loves playing with her sibling dogs, with no sign of the trauma apparent to hinder her endless energy.
Emergency and Critical Care resident Dr. Mark Ryan and veterinary technician Christy Tomcik Walker took home first and third place, respectively, in a blinded poster competition. Ryan, whose residency is sponsored through his role in the U.S. Army, described a preclinical model to help study blood transfusions when animals are in shock.
Urgent Care technician supervisor, Tomcik-Walker shared a case of a severe dog bite wound that she helped stabilize despite critical changes to the dog’s limb and ability to maintain a normal blood pressure. The inaugural poster program was sponsored by CSU’s Office of the Vice President of Research.
During the conference’s program, small animal surgery faculty member Dr. Catriona MacPhail sat on a panel of veterinarians and human physicians sharing the similarities and differences between trauma cases they see. The interdisciplinary session highlighting translational trauma efforts was moderated by the CSU’s Chief Medical Research Officer, Dr. Heather Pidcoke. MacPhail brought expertise from hundreds of trauma cases, demonstrating the quality of trauma care in veterinary medicine.
Emergency and Critical Care resident Dr. Claire Tucker discussed her work on canine traumatic brain injury and its link to how treating canine brain injury may help give insight to human brain injury. The CSU team also debuted the first images of Veterinary Advanced Trauma Life Support course, a continuing education course to improve trauma patient care across the veterinary profession. The course was fostered from a partnership with the American College of Surgeons, which runs a similar course in human medicine.
CSU’s James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital is a Level II Trauma Center. Its Urgent Care is open from 7 a.m. to midnight daily and is equipped to see all manner of canine, feline, and exotic animal trauma.