She had been admitted for surgery on a disc in her neck.
The procedure was scheduled for the following day, but suddenly she couldn’t breathe, sometimes a side effect of the type of injury she had suffered.
Fortunately, the patient, a dog, was at the only Level 1 veterinary trauma center in New York City. And the team at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center is prepared for just about anything.
“We had to put the animal on the ventilator overnight, and then the next day, the neuro team came in and did the surgery,” says the head of Emergency and Critical Care Service, Dr. Jennifer Prittie. “Within 24 hours, we were able to take the dog off the ventilator and she was discharged from the hospital.”
AMC is the busiest animal ER in the region, with 20,000 patient visits annually and 21 staff veterinarians (with specialty training in emergency medicine, surgery and radiology) who treat animals who’ve been hit by cars, bitten, beaten or are experiencing other health emergencies.
To achieve Level 1 trauma center status, which it did in 2015, AMC had to demonstrate the ability to manage every aspect of care for small-animal patients, from emergency stabilization and transfusion medicine to medical and surgical treatment and rehabilitation.
The center — one of just five with such accreditation in the nation — is also required to provide services 24/7, 365 days a year.
It must be equipped with a CT scanner, a ventilator, an on-site generator and a collection of the most up-to-date veterinary books, journals, databases and other resources, and offer teaching opportunities for students and residents.
But the facility, located at East 62nd Street and York Avenue, isn’t just a veterinary emergency hospital. It’s also the largest nonprofit animal hospital in the world.
During regular business hours, specialists in anesthesiology, neurology, internal medicine, cardiology, ophthalmology and exotic-pet medicine are on hand to care for patients — along with being on call for emergencies.
Whether your pet is a Cavalier with heart disease, a German shepherd with hip dysplasia, a pit bull with cancer, a Lab with a broken tooth, a pug with a corneal ulcer or an Australian shepherd with a torn ACL, treatment is at hand.
“I would say with confidence that the AMC very rarely, if ever, has to transfer an animal away from us that requires any sort of intervention, whether it be interventional radiology or surgery, any sort of neurosurgery, transfusions, even hemodialysis and dialysis for toxins,” Prittie says. “AMC really just has kind of everything that you need, and there’s always somebody there that’s ready to help.”
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