10/21/2026
Happy Vet Tech week!❣
While we appreciate and are so thankful for ALL of those special people that support veterinary patients, this week is dedicated to the veterinary technicians! These individuals are absolute ROCKSTARS and do so much behind the scenes constantly to keep a veterinary hospital running smoothly!
What exactly are registered vet techs doing at Vet Cross, you may wonder? Their job description include things like
-Patient triage
-Listening to pet owners to help gauge concerns and communicating them to DVMs
-Restraining patients for physical exams
-Performing diagnostics on patients, to include phlebotomy and lab work, urine collection/a**lysis, positioning for and obtaining radiographs, ear cytology samples, blood pressure evaluation, and blood morphology evaluation that allow DVMs to come up with a recommended treatment plan
-Creating and reviewing financial estimates with owners to ensure you understand what you are paying for
-Administering treatments to patients, including fluid therapy, injectable medications, breathing treatments, and oral medications
-Filling prescriptions for patients and ensuring the labels, counts, and dosing is accurate
-Preparing patients for sedation and anesthesia; this includes intubating all sorts of patients and fully shaving/cleaning/flushing/prepping surgical sites (even the really yucky ones!)
-Monitoring patients under sedation and anesthesia; this requires very specific knowledge and a skill set to be able to pick up on subtle changes that may suggest a patient is having an issue; then communicating that to the DVM in order to help correct/resolve
-Updating families on hospitalized or surgical patients
-Setting up oxygen and providing this therapy to patients when needed
-Placing IV catheters and drawing blood, even in the most fractious/tiniest/most dehydrated patients!
-Cleaning wounds
-Placing bandages
-Helping to calculate, properly log, and administer controlled substances as appropriate
-Helping to ensure pets are as comfortable and cozy during their stay, and communicating any clinical concerns they observe so we can appropriate manage pain or anxiety as needed
-Cleaning surgical instruments after a procedure
-Autoclaving and properly wrapping surgical packs so we are always prepared for the next surgical procedure
-Preparing and submitting tissue samples for lab transport
-Entering medical charges
-Cleaning and organizing surgical suite, performing maintenance procedures to ensure lab and anesthesia/surgical equipment is running properly
-Comforting and monitoring patients when they are distressed or anxious
-Assisting with humane euthanasias
-The list goes on and on....
An unpleasant 'perk' of the job (not a requirement, but just frequently occurs) is getting nipped at, urinated or defecated on, scratched, drooled on, or the occasional lucky a**l gland expression on your scrubs. :) 🤢
Veterinary technicians will frequently be the ones holding and caressing your pet in their final moments, or holding your hand during this time if you're trying to go through it alone.❤️
These people will jump into action in a moment's notice to help their patients...pushing their bodies to do whatever it takes. They lay on the floor if needed, frequently climb into tiny spaces, lift and move patients that weigh more than them, and skip their breaks to contribute. They hustle and get it done, then come back the next day to do it again. They are skilled and confident leaders that remain calm and help guide the rest of their teams during time of emergencies and large case loads, when others may have crumbled under the stress. They treat every patient as if it were there own, and take home/worry about their cases regularly. They have dedicated their careers to a profession that is challenging physically and emotionally because they CARE bigger than you can imagine!
THANK YOU to all those amazing veterinary technicians out there! We are so fortunate here at Vet Cross to have an incredible experienced RVT Alli and a rising technician Madi that recently graduated from her veterinary technician program! You are both so appreciated!🤗👏🤩🐾❤️
