From the Director of Hospital Operations

Hello, and welcome to 2020! At the turn of a new year, I like to reflect on accomplishments, and we have so much to share with you from LVMC. As a “data” person, I find numbers tell a story, and I would like to share some of our fiscal year 2019 numbers with you.

Obviously, teaching is our primary mission, so an excellent place to start. We trained 166 ISU and contract 4th-year veterinary students last year in our hospital, along with 11 interns, 26 specialty residents, and several visiting DVM scholars and preceptors from ancillary professions such as veterinary technology, radiation technology, and pharmacy. Maybe you’ve already hired one of our dynamic new graduates!

We take our mission to improve the profession seriously, and most of our specialty services participated in clinical trials or clinical research last year. You can read about a few of those projects in this newsletter or on our website.

Our commitment to providing top quality professional services is a shared goal. Thank you for trusting us with your patients when you refer to us. Be sure to read about our new Referral Coordinator, who helps facilitate the process. She is just one of the many support personnel we have hired to keep up with the increased demand for our services (32 percent caseload increase in 10 years). We have also made updates to our infrastructure, including anesthesia telemetry available across all hospitals, the addition of radiation therapy, and we are currently covering the entire equine hospital with a top-rated rubberized non-slip flooring surface.

We are proud that our small animal Emergency and Critical Care (ECC) Service is certified by VECCS as a Level II Facility. We are extremely excited that VetCOT has identified our facility as also meeting the requirements for certification as a Level II trauma center in their new initiative to start a trauma registry. Our ECC is the fastest growing service at LVMC, providing care ranging from basic emergency triage through high-level intensive and critical care. 

We are continually working to best meet our missions of Teaching, Research and Service. With our outstanding faculty and staff, plus our referring veterinary partners, I am sure that 2020 will bring wins in all areas. May this be a great year for us all.

Stephanie West, D.V.M.

Director of Hospital
Operations, LVMC