Small Animal Role Optimizes Continuity of Care

This article first appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of Synergy magazine

Dr. Maria Vasquez already has a favorite aspect to her position in the small animal hospital—helping manage stress for clinicians and families with hospitalized pets. By getting more hands-on time with her patients, she provides an additional resource to medical teams and reassurance to clients that the best care is being provided for their beloved pets.

Vasquez’s newly created Hospitalist Clinician role falls under the Emergency and Critical Care Service, working with patients in the Intermediate Care Ward (ICW), isolation units, and general wards. She assists primary clinicians in ensuring their patients receive optimal care, facilitating and performing procedures, participating in technician training, and helping with management of emergency room cases. Having completed an emergency and critical care residency training program, Vasquez is well prepared to provide high-level patient care and education.

“This is a vital new role,” said Dr. Kate Hopper, director of the small animal hospital. “With our busy emergency caseload, this position ensures our patients receive timely treatment and continuity of care when they transition from emergency to other specialty services.”

Often, that transition requires intermediate care, where Vasquez now takes the lead and tends to those patients’ urgent needs.

“Care of animals in the ICW and the isolation units can be quite intensive,” said Vasquez. “The hospitalist position is a new clinician role assigned directly to those inpatients, allowing the specialty clinicians to focus on their many other demands with outpatients. This allows us to give both inpatients and outpatients the attention they deserve and need.”

Vasquez points to diabetic ketoacidosis cases as prime examples of the relevance of the hospitalist position. Between their initial presentation through the ER and their transfer to the Internal Medicine Service, most of those patients are housed in the ICW and require frequent and delicate changes to their medications. Vasquez’s critical care skills and ability to focus more exclusively on these patients are an example of the enhanced patient care she can help provide in this role.

Technician support and training is another important aspect to this new position. Care in the ER and ICW requires more technician focus than in the general wards. Vasquez’s presence complements that care and adds another layer of patient safety, especially important with the critically ill patients in these hospital areas.

“The addition of Dr. Vasquez has significantly enhanced our inpatient care and improved efficiency across the specialty services,” said Dr. Michael Mison, chief veterinary medical officer.

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