I work as an overnight veterinary technician in a full-service animal hospital. My hours are from 8pm to 6am, 4 days a week.

You would think it would be like an episode of ER with animals, but it is not. Most of the time (90%) we are giving treatments to critically ill animals such as; medications, temperatures, blood glucose levels.

For emergencies that come in, we put in catheters, administer fluids and medications, and do a tremendous amount of observing. A lot of the animals there are extremely critical and could arrest very quickly, so it is duty of the overnight technicians to keep an extremely close eye on the critical cases, and obviously indicate any kind of distress. In addition, the emergency techs should also always be ready for any emergency that requires CPR. The way it usually happens is "out of the blue". Either someone will come in unexpectedly with an arresting animal or an animal will arrest will in the hospital. When this happens, you must immediately follow the instructions of the doctor or the supervising technician involved, know your place and abilities, and act accordingly.

For example, a dog comes in at 5am who is having trouble breathing, exhibiting a tremendous amount of drooling and some coughing. The doctor thought it was possibly a bloat* A bloat is when the stomach of a large dog twists near the pyloric sphincter and no food or gases can exit the stomach. We take the x-ray within 5 minutes of their arrival, and the minute the x-ray (radiograph) film hits the reader (the light apparatus to read x-ray films) the dog stops breathing on the x-ray table. The x-rays reveal he is not bloated. We begin CPR, including chest compressions, the administration on epinephrine and atropine. He is intubated with a catheter within 2 minutes. CPR is continued for about 10-15 minutes with absolutely no results. Occasionally there will be a faint heartbeat that will justify continuing CPR, but there was nothing in this case, and so he was declared dead.

The owner wanted to see him and began crying hysterically, which made me cry, so I left the room. Being an emergency technician has been fantastic and has taught me how to work as a team to get things done, no matter what.