Creating a safe culture around veterinary medication errors

During this interview with dvm360 at the 2026 Veterinary Meeting & Expo in Orlando, Florida, Renee Schmid, DVM, DABT, DABVT, discussed therapeutic errors in the clinic that can be toxic to pets. Through the interview, she shares more on what types of errors she sees at Pet Poison Helpline, the role humans can play in these cases, and why it is important to talk about these medical errors instead of treating them as failures.

Below is a transcript, edited lightly for clarity

Renee Schmid: I'm [Renee Schmid, DVM, DABT, DABVT]. I'm the director of veterinary medicine and senior veterinary toxicologist for Pet Poison Helpline

dvm360: When we talk about therapeutic errors in veterinary practice, what are the most common types you see reported, and why do they happen even in a well run hospital?

Schmid: I think there are numerous different ones. One, they may have some mislabeled medication. They may have misread the bottle, they may have maybe misspoken or miswritten the directions. But the most common one for us is most likely calculation errors. The decimal point might have been put in the wrong place, or maybe they used pounds instead of kilograms in their calculation.

dvm360: How do human factors like fatigue, multitasking, and communication breakdowns contribute to therapeutic errors?

Schmid: I think human factors really play a significant role. Veterinary practices are busy. They're multitasking, as you said. They have got a lot on their minds, and even the most cautious of human can make a mistake every once in a while

dvm360: Why is it important to normalize conversations about medical errors rather than treating them as individual failures?

Schmid: I think it's extremely important to create a safe space, because we want our staff to be able to admit to and to show that a mistake has been made, so that It can be corrected, and that can be rectified. I think back when I was in practice and fairly newly out in practice, we had a veterinary assistant who had been with us for several years. They weren't new to the profession, and instead of giving a unit of insulin to the small dog, she gave 1 mL of insulin. Fortunately, she recognized it right away. She told us right away, so we were able to treat this pet before they had any negative effects from it.