Happy National Veterinary Technician Week
This week is National Veterinary Technician Week. It takes place in the third week of October each year, and provides an opportunity to veterinarians and their clinics to recognize the contributions of veterinary technicians. During this week, those of us who frequently haunt our veterinary clinics should take a moment honor vet techs’ commitment to compassionate and high-quality veterinary care for all animals, including those who don’t make it easy for them.
I personally want to take a moment to thank all vet techs, but especially those at The Animal Hospital on Teasley Lane (Denton, TX), All Cats Veterinary Hospital (Houston, TX) and All Care Veterinary Hospital (Coppell, TX) for their care and compassion.
Some clinics call them veterinary nurses. It doesn’t matter what you call them. As William Shakespeare so wisely penned many centuries ago, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Admittedly, sometime they smell, but not so sweet. Like those times anal gland expressions go wrong, the sick kitty projectile vomited with William Tell precision. At times like that, I smile weakly and apologize to the tech dripping with runny poop. The response is usually something, “That’s okay. Now we have that fecal sample. I’ll just go run it and see what we can find.”
I asked my friend Cynthia Rigoni, DVM, All Cats Veterinary Hospital in Houston, to write something about her techs and she came through. “This is National Veterinary Technician Week. I am a little at a loss as to what to say. I simply cannot do what I do without the technicians here at All Cats. They are more than nurses. They are more than a cleaning crew. They are here 7 days a week. They come in whenever I call (like at 2 in the morning for a C-section). We play together. We occasionally have words. In short, they are like my family. We may be a little dysfunctional, but we try to put the fun into that word every day and treat your animals like they are our own, while we’re doing it.”
Thank you Vet Techs for your caring, compassion, your ability to communicate and the time you spend with me, my personal kitties and my fosters. You are heroes.
