Staying calm under pressure

Trauma cases are among the most urgent and stressful situations a veterinary team will face. They arrive without warning, affect any species or size, and can deteriorate in seconds. At the Fetch dvm360 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Tami Lind, BS, RVT, VTS(ECC), Clinical Services Coordinator, Small Animal at Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine offered technicians a practical framework for managing them, and a reminder that critical thinking under pressure is a skill that can be built.

Triage comes first

Every trauma case begins with triage, and the goal is simply to identify who needs care most urgently. “The thing that’s dying is going to go before the other thing that needs vaccines,” Lind said. But appearances can deceive. She described a tail-wagging dog with white gums that looked stable on arrival, only to become laterally recumbent seconds later. A quick lift of the lips and a hands-on once-over, she noted, can catch what a first glance misses.

Owner communication is part of the process. Lind advised teams to explain that “being first is never the best”—that a pet taken to the back immediately is the one in the most trouble. She also urged technicians to be kind to themselves: “You, as a technician, need to understand that triage is not perfect.”

As she put it, “nobody’s perfect and give yourself some grace because it’s OK to make a mistake.”

Lind’s first rule is deceptively simple: “Step one of seeing a trauma case is to not panic.” Emotion is contagious in a treatment area. As she explained, “If you’re stressed, then everybody around you is stressed, and then the patient will get stressed if they feel that.” Rather than telling a panicking colleague to calm down, she suggested modeling calm and commanding the room by taking a few seconds to assess before anyone moves.

Composure, she argued, comes from preparation. Lind runs mock emergencies, sometimes carrying a stuffed animal into the treatment area and announcing a dying patient, so her team knows where the oxygen, crash cart, monitors, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation supplies live before a real code begins.

Stabilize before you diagnose

Lind anchored her clinical approach in the ABCs of trauma: “airway, breathing, circulation, disability, and then external assessment.” Once a patient is assessed, she prioritizes intravenous access, followed closely by analgesia. “Pain management is super, super, super important, and that’s what veterinary technicians are here for,” she said. “We are here to advocate for our patients and give them pain management,” she added. “Oxygen is never wrong, and it’s pretty cheap, so just give it.”

Diagnostics wait until the patient is stable. Lind recounted stopping an intern from taking radiographs of a patient whose blood pressure was only 40. Her rule on the point is blunt: “Nothing should ever, ever, ever die in radiology.” When a case stalls, she said, keep the focus where it belongs—“always focus on the patient, and always direct it toward the patient.”

Communication and teamwork

Closed-loop communication can prevent dangerous errors, such as 2 technicians unknowingly double-dosing a patient. Lind’s advice is to “always communicate effectively with your team members” and to ensure that a single leader delegates each task by name. She described walking into a chaotic respiratory-distress case and restoring order simply by asking the clinician to direct instructions to specific people; the flow, she said, improved instantly.

Caring for the caregiver Finally, Lind reminded attendees that repeated exposure to devastating cases takes a toll. As she noted, “if you are already in a little bit of compassion fatigue and burnout, like cases like this, just seeing them all the time can affect your mental status.” She encouraged teams to debrief without blame and to “always assume good intent,” adding that mental health resources are available for those who need them.

Her closing message tied the tool kit together. Triage carefully, stabilize before imaging, and assess often, but be patient with the learning curve. “Critical thinking doesn’t happen overnight, so don’t be discouraged,” Lind said, noting that for new technicians it can take 6 months to a year to develop. Above all, she said, “give yourself some grace.”

Reference

1. Lind T. Trauma toolkit: step by step skills for veterinary technicians. Presented at: Fetch dvm360 Conference; May 28-30, 2026; Nashville, TN