Inside Emergency Vet Care: How We Prioritize When Every Second Counts

How Do Veterinarians Prioritize Cases When Multiple Emergencies Arrive At Once?

When minutes matter, who gets seen first at a pet ER—and why? We open the doors on emergency triage so you can understand the logic that protects lives and preserves dignity. From a dog that can’t breathe to a family seeking a peaceful goodbye, we explain how clinicians make fast choices, how hospitalized cases affect the lobby, and why some visits take longer even when the parking lot looks empty.

We talk through practical, time-saving steps you can take as a pet owner. Early decontamination after ingestions—socks, corn cobs, rat bait, flavored NSAIDs, xylitol, or lily exposure in cats—can turn a major surgery or organ crisis into a quick, affordable fix. You’ll hear how to keep key records handy, what information matters most after hours, and how urgent cares and primary vets share data to speed decisions. We also share simple prevention tactics for medication safety and kitchen counter patrol that can spare you a 2 a.m. emergency.

End-of-life planning deserves care and choice, not panic. We describe how our comfort rooms, private exits, and on-staff licensed social worker support families through euthanasia with respect and clarity. Thinking ahead about who should be present, where to say goodbye, and what aftercare you prefer can ease one of the hardest days you’ll face, especially for seniors with chronic disease. Along the way, we highlight trends in modern emergency care: fewer road traumas in urban areas, more geriatric medicine, and the ever-present wave of vomiting and diarrhea that still needs real help at night.

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To learn more about Frisco Emergency Pet Care visit:
https://www.FriscoEmergencyPetCare.com
Frisco Emergency Pet Care 
11201 Preston Road 
Frisco, Texas 75033 
469-287-6767 

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of The Show

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast, your trusted source for expert insight into emergency veterinary medicine. Hosted by Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care, this podcast brings you essential information to help protect the health and safety of your dogs and cats. Serving North Dallas with 24-7 emergency and critical care, the team at Frisco Emergency Pet Care is here when every second counts. Now, let's begin.

Why Triage Dictates Who Gets Seen First

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Welcome back, everyone. I'm Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer in the studio with Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care. Hi, Doctor. Thank you for joining us again.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Oh, hello, Julie. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah, so we're ready to dive into this topic. How do you veterinarians prioritize all these cases when multiple emergencies come in at once?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a good question. It's something that pet owners really kind of need to understand, if nothing else, for their own mental health and the mental health of the staff in the emergency hospitals because it can be really frustrating. Everybody that presents to an emergency hospital, well, maybe everybody is strong, but most people that come in have got a quite a quite a bit of fear because they just don't know what's going on. And when their patient is taken into the back, we we will separate them so that we can examine them. If they are stable and it's going to be a while before we get to them, frequently we'll return them to the room because those those pets would rather hang out with their owners than they would with us. But in terms of how we triage and what order we see everybody in, in an ideal world, we see you in the order in which you come in. And for things that are stable, that's exactly how we do things. But if you bring in the dog that's had diarrhea for a couple of days and he's otherwise pretty stable, but it needs to be and it needs to be treated, but you're waiting in line and something comes in that is having a hard time breathing or has collapsed. Or if we have somebody that comes in and presents a patient for euthanasia because they realize it's time to say goodbye, then your wait time just got a little bit longer because it we will handle those really serious cases first, obviously. You really don't want to have the most urgent case in an emergency hospital. You don't want to be in that position any more than you want to be the most emergent case in a human ER, right? You'd rather be the uh, yeah, I've got a I've got this issue, but I can wait a couple of hours while you're dealing with with the really, really important

Wait Times, ICU Juggling, And Communication

SPEAKER_02 3:06

ones. Whenever we can for those stable patients, and we know it's going to be a while because we've got several that we have to assess and we have to spend time with each individual client and pet owner and make sure that they really understand what's going on with their patient. Otherwise, they can't make good informed decisions, and sometimes that takes a little bit longer, depends on how complex it is, depends on how well prepared people are to receive news. Sometimes those things take some time to really get through and to assess what all the options are and to make decisions going forward, which increases the wait time, and nobody likes to wait. And you're sitting there for three or four hours thinking, you know, nothing's happening back there. There weren't even any cars in the parking lot. You guys have nothing to do. Well, you don't know how long those pets have been there. Are we doing everything by phone? How many hospitalized patients do we have that we're also trying to manage and juggle at the same time? A lot of times the ICU can feel like we are um, you know, doctors feel like we're spinning plates. You know, we're just trying to keep everything, everything spinning and everything up in the air because we don't want anything to drop. And so we've got maybe critical cases that we're dealing with that are hospitalized in addition to those that present to us.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

And how is the communication with other clinics when you need access to information?

Records And Referrals: Sharing Information

SPEAKER_00 4:33

I know that in our past with only pets, like that sometimes has been a challenge, at least back in the day when you were trying to get records over. Is that something that you find to be easier nowadays?

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Uh well, I would love to say that it was. In in some cases, when practices have have a portal set up and people can access their patients' information, that can be super helpful. Uh, if it's if it's during the day on a Saturday, frequently we can get information or we have to wait until the following morning to to call and request records get sent. Uh, so it can be it can be a little challenging. If they're referred in from a from an urgent care, something that's open until 10 or midnight, then frequently we get their records. We don't get anything from their primary, but we get blood work results and and copies of x-rays from those those urgent cares pretty routinely.

What Jumps The Line: Toxins And Euthanasia

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And if it's not like a life-threatening issue that you find, but with a more senior dog or cat, do you usually take them first, you know, if something is comparable in the waiting room?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

It's not not necessarily. If they've eaten something that needs to come out, those get seen very quickly. Now, those don't take up a lot of my time, honestly. We get a quick assessment, we give them an injection to start vomiting, and we see if that corn cob or that sock will come up because it's a whole lot better to spend, you know, 300 bucks or whatever it is on getting that sock out than it is to talk about multiple thousands of dollars and a lot more physical trauma because we've got to go to surgery in a couple of days. Um if they've eaten medication. I'd much rather have that stuff out, whether it's medication, whether it's xylitol or some other toxic substance, if we can get it out, early decontamination, which frequently includes vomiting, is really makes a huge difference as to the the arc of the treatment plan, the expense of the treatment plan. So those things get seen very early. Um, but then the then right up there with the things that need to be seen right away, are those patients that are presenting for euthanasia, or they present for a problem where euthanasia is very likely going to be the answer, such as that collapsed older dog that has blood in his abdomen, even though the owners didn't realize that. We try to get to those folks first. We prioritize those because they're in an emotional state, and it's it seems only fair. If so, if you've got the hey, this this needs to be seen, my dog's got a raspberry jam stool, as gross as that that idea is, right? They've got a little bit of blood in the stool, maybe they're vomiting a little bit, but they're well hydrated and they're standing up, they're wagging their tail. It's going to take me a while to get to that if I've got these other issues going on simultaneously.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

And communicating with owners, how does that all factor into managing multiple emergencies?

Communicating Clearly Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I imagine that's that can be challenging at times.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

It it it certainly can be, because we like I said, my job from the way I see it is to make sure that you understand what's going on with your pet, and that as far as you're concerned, your pet's the only one I've got to deal with. And I give you very focused time, whether that's on the phone or whether that's in person, because not only do you have to have all the information, you have to understand all the information. So we have to present that in a way that's not medical speak, right? It's it's in terms everybody can can kind of wrap their mind around so that we can together make good decisions for your pet going forward.

Preparing For Goodbye And Comfort Rooms

SPEAKER_00 8:44

And I know we touched on this on the last episode, but you brought up some great tips about preparing for the situation ahead of time. Like you wrote this book, planning your pet's final piece, and it had to do with preparing for when they go and being ready for that.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

That was several years ago. I had probably been doing emergency only for about a decade at that point, and so it was more than 10 years ago. Uh, but I got so frustrated that that people weren't better prepared when they would come to me for that that euthanasia experience. Now we do a good job. A lot of our hospital is is actually set up specifically because that process is, I think, one of the most important things we will ever do for you. So our comfort rooms are in a different part of the hospital, they're over by my counselor's office, they have their own exit, they've got oxygen drops, and we're set up to do all the procedures in that room so we don't have to take pets away. So I think we've got a really good setup in in our hospital for that, but I also found that at the especially at the time, I didn't have quite this setup 10 years ago, um, that if people would just talk about the idea and do a little pre-planning, just like we do or should do for our own funerals as we get older, I say, as a 60-year-old man, um who needs to be present when the time comes? Do the kids need to be there? Do I have grown children that want to be present? Do husband and wife want to both be there? Um, who needs to be present? Where should we have this done? Should we should we plan it in our at our general practice, at our regular day veterinarian? Do we go to the emergency room for it? Do we do we call in a service? We've got four practices in our area at least that do nothing other than in-home euthanasia. And for some people, especially with really big dogs or with cats that really hate coming into the hospital, sometimes a little pre-planning would make that better. And I would see people at two o'clock in the morning for a cat with that we were euthanizing because he's got chronic kidney disease that's been going on for months, and they decide at two o'clock in the morning that that's now the time. But their own experience would have been so much better if they had thought about it just a little bit in advance, they would have had more options than coming to see me. Um, so that's that's why I wrote that book, was trying to get people to have these conversations in advance. Now, that doesn't mean that we aren't the best place. If something happens, if there is an accident or an injury or a sudden illness, like I said, we do a great job by the pet, and I think we do a really good job in terms of what the pet owner perceives because it is a very challenging thing. That's why we have a counselor on staff.

Social Worker Support And Staff Wellbeing

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Uh she's not there all the time. My biggest beef with her is that she only works 40 hours a week, and we're open 168 as a 24-7. You know, so she's only there 25% of the time. But when she's there, she can help people through that emotional part of the decision making. I can help you as well because I've been doing this for a long time, but she's actually been trained. I mean, she's a licensed social worker, so you know, we've got we've got those those options.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, and that's amazing that you have a social worker on site. I know we've talked about this in our conversations, but that's amazing because you don't see that hardly anywhere at these pet clinics, especially in a time like this.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Right. Well, I think uh to my knowledge, a social worker in the hospital is only present in probably two or three hospitals in the country. There are some of the bigger corporate practices that will use them as a regional resource, but that's almost always for staff, not for clients. Um, and ours certainly takes good care of our of our team as well because it can be can be a pretty stressful job.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, it's very I imagine very hard, very sad at times, and a lot of challenges managing all these cases. I I do have a question for you.

Most Common Emergencies We See Today

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Last one is that from my conversations with other pet industry experts or they're in the rescue world, a lot of the issues they see with their dogs and cats are what you mentioned, they they took something in, they you know, ingested something either poisonous or they just like an object. And that's been one of their biggest emergency challenges or getting hit by a car. Um, what are the most common emergencies that you see where you are?

SPEAKER_02 13:42

We see, you know, when I was in Frisco the first time, I was I practiced as a as a general veterinarian as a day practice about 30 years ago in this same area, but this area is very different now than it was 30 years ago. This was rural farmland, and we kind of built that practice on broken bones from hit by cars because this was a every road was two-lane and it was all farmland, and we didn't have a leash law, and so it was very different. Nowadays, in Frisco is a very modern city, um, so people do a better job. I don't see very many hit by cars. We do see them occasionally. Um, we see a lot of ingestions, uh, a lot of you know, the glamour of my job is that I get to deal with diarrhea and vomiting on it on a daily basis. Um, you know, we look at that and say, well, you know, that's not really an emergency, but it still needs to be treated, even if it's in the middle of the night, right? And if it if it happens to you and if your dog's having a watery or bloody diarrhea every couple of hours, that's that's a real it's a real challenge, right? So we we see a lot of a lot of those. Um I see a lot of congestive heart failure as we see our pet population living longer. And and uh you know a lot of those are on medications and a lot of those are are not.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah, they definitely are living longer. We have a lot of senior dogs really in our neighborhood right now.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

So well, I'm seeing more, I'm seeing more 17, 18, 19-year-old dogs than I than I saw 20 and 30 years ago. Uh they're still fairly rare, but it um but it happens. Um so yeah, I mean ingestions are also one of the one of the biggest things, whether it's a whether it's a soccer, a corn cob, uh, whether it's rat bait uh medications, one of the downsides to to medications is that we have made some products for dogs super palatable. So when we talk about antibiotics or really the NSAIDs, things like Remidil or Carprofen, these drugs are now super palatable, which makes it easy for you to give it. But sometimes the dogs like it so much that they'll actually pull their bottle down off the counter and eat them all at once because they think it's a treat. And while they're safe drugs at the dose we use, they're they're not safe if you take 20 or 50 or

Closing And How To Reach The Clinic

SPEAKER_02 16:10

180 of them at at one time. So getting those guys in and getting them decom uh decontaminated, usually through vomiting, sometimes with activated charcoal, is is important to do in a timely, timely manner. You know, cats that get into that didn't get into lilies, dogs that get into sugar-free gum of all things, xylitol, the thing that makes sugar-free gum sweet for people, is a disaster for for dogs. It's incredibly toxic or it can be. So, yeah, seeing all those things is is really important.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Oh well, Dr. Lasasso, thank you again for walking us through how this all works behind the scenes and what you know pet caregivers can look out for. We always appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Thank you for listening to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast. To learn more, visit FriscoPetER.com. Call 469-287-6767. Or stop by 11201 Preston Road, Frisco, Texas, 75033. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Frisco Emergency Pet Care is always here when your pet needs us most. Until next time, take care of your pets, and they'll take care of you.