Emergency veterinary medicine is becoming more technological, but technology alone does not stabilize a crashing dog, preserve vision after acute glaucoma, or prevent an anesthetized patient from deteriorating on the table.
In U.S. emergency animal hospitals, clinicians now rely on multiparameter anesthesia monitors, digital radiography, ultrasound, point-of-care testing, slit lamp biomicroscopes, and applanation tonometers. These systems can generate vital data within seconds. The harder question is whether the person reading that data can recognize its meaning before the patient's condition becomes irreversible.
That is where Yelyzaveta Shudrenko's work stands out.
Trained in Ukraine as a veterinarian with a clinical focus on small animal medicine and ophthalmology, Shudrenko now works at Pet ER in Miami while completing the U.S. licensing pathway required for internationally trained veterinarians. Inside a fast-moving emergency hospital, she monitors anesthesia, assists in high-acuity cases, manages ophthalmic assessments, supports post-operative recovery, and trains newer team members to understand patient data beyond alarm thresholds.
Her contribution is not limited to operating equipment. In critical cases, she interprets patterns across capnography, oxygen saturation, ECG, blood pressure, temperature, and clinical signs, then helps the team act before a complication escalates.
We spoke with Shudrenko about the technology shaping veterinary emergency care, the cases where her clinical background changed the outcome, and why the next step for veterinary systems is not more data, but better real-time interpretation.
Reading the Patient Behind the Monitor
You describe anesthesia monitoring as one of the areas where your medical background matters most. What do you actually do during a procedure?
During anesthesia, the patient cannot tell us anything. Every warning comes through the monitor, the body, and the surgical context.
I watch capnography waveform morphology, not only the number. The shape of the wave can show problems earlier than a simple value. I compare oxygen saturation with heart rate, because those indicators sometimes move together and sometimes separate. When they separate, that can be important. I also read blood pressure in relation to the stage of anesthesia and what the surgeon is doing.
For example, a pressure drop during induction is different from a pressure drop during active tissue manipulation. The same number can mean different things depending on timing and context.
Because I have worked as the clinician responsible for decisions, I know when a deviation needs immediate escalation. In an emergency room where one veterinarian may be working with two or three technicians, that judgment helps the doctor focus on the procedure while knowing someone is actively interpreting the patient's status.
A GDV Case Where Minutes Mattered
You managed a case of gastric dilatation-volvulus, one of the most urgent emergencies in small-animal medicine. What happened?
GDV is one of the cases where speed and coordination matter immediately. The stomach rotates, venous return is compromised, and the patient can crash very quickly.
This dog came in with a severely distended abdomen, pale mucous membranes, tachycardia, and a weak pulse. Before imaging, the clinical picture already suggested a life-threatening emergency.
My first task was to establish large-bore IV access quickly. That is not always simple in these patients because shock causes vasoconstriction and the veins can collapse. Once access was secured, we started aggressive fluid resuscitation.
While fluids were running, I monitored the cardiovascular response continuously: whether the heart rate was decreasing, whether pulse quality was improving, and whether the patient was stabilizing enough for surgery. The monitor gave us data, but the interpretation came from clinical experience.
After surgery, I helped manage recovery. That included structured pain scoring, monitoring return of gastrointestinal motility, and watching the ECG for reperfusion arrhythmias, which can happen after GDV correction. The dog recovered and went home.
For me, that case shows what emergency technology should do. It supports decisions, but it does not replace the person who understands what the data means.
Using Ophthalmic Technology to Save Vision
Ophthalmology is one of your clinical focus areas. What does specialized diagnostic technology make possible there?
Ophthalmology is urgent because sometimes we have only hours to preserve vision.
A slit lamp biomicroscope lets us examine the anterior segment of the eye in much more detail than a surface exam. With it, I can assess the depth of a corneal injury, look for cellular infiltrate in the anterior chamber, and evaluate whether the lens is involved.
The tonometer is just as important. Acute glaucoma can raise intraocular pressure dramatically. In dogs, normal pressure is usually around 10 to 20 mmHg, while acute glaucoma can reach 50, 60, or 70 mmHg. At that level, retinal cells can begin dying within hours.
I had a patient that came in looking like a routine conjunctivitis case. The eye was red and painful, but without pressure measurement, the real problem could have been missed. The tonometer reading changed the treatment plan immediately. That dog kept its sight because the right diagnostic step happened at the right time.
Training Staff to Think Clinically, Not Mechanically
You also train newer staff members. How do you teach them to use monitoring equipment properly?
I teach them not to treat monitors as alarm machines—and that's actually harder than it sounds, because alarm-response behavior gets reinforced early and is difficult to unlearn.
The most common mistake I see is memorizing normal ranges without understanding what the parameter represents physiologically. Someone silences a capnography alarm because the patient looks calm, because the number is only slightly off, because nothing dramatic is happening visually. What they're not seeing is that the ETCO₂ has been drifting downward for four minutes in a pattern that, to someone who understands what capnography is actually measuring, looks like early decreased cardiac output—not a sensor artifact, not acceptable variation. By the time the alarm becomes impossible to ignore, you've already lost time you needed.
So I start with relationships, not readings. Why do heart rate and blood pressure move together in hemorrhagic shock but diverge in distributive shock? What does a capnography waveform shape tell you that the numeric value alone doesn't—why does a shark-fin waveform mean something categorically different from a normal plateau with a depressed number? Why does the direction of SpO₂ trend matter as much as its current value, and why should a reading that's technically within normal range but has dropped four points in ten minutes concern you more than a stable reading that's slightly below reference?
Once someone can answer those questions without prompting, the monitor stops being a set of thresholds to react to and starts being a conversation with the patient's physiology. That's the shift I'm trying to produce.
Then I teach handoffs, because in emergency medicine the transition between team members is where information dies. It is not enough to say "vitals are stable." A useful handoff tells the next person what the status is, what the trend has been, what changed in the last thirty minutes, and specifically what to watch for—which parameter, in which direction, and what it means if it moves. In a team of two or three technicians covering a critical patient, that communication structure isn't a courtesy. It's a clinical protocol. I've worked in situations where an ambiguous handoff cost us minutes we didn't have. You learn very quickly to be precise.
The Next Step for Veterinary Technology
What does veterinary emergency technology still need to improve?
The problem is not that we lack technology. The problem is that busy emergency teams receive more information than they can always process in real time.
I would like to see more integrated monitoring systems that do not only show separate parameters, but identify cross-parameter patterns. For example, when blood pressure, capnography, heart rate, and oxygen saturation begin changing together, the system should help surface that pattern quickly.
I do not believe AI or decision-support tools should replace clinical judgment. But they can shorten the time between data appearing and the clinician understanding what it means. In emergency care, that time matters.
The veterinary workforce shortage will not be solved quickly because training and licensing take years. So the practical question is how to help the clinicians already in the hospital work more effectively. Better interpretation, better workflow, and better decision support can make a real difference.
For me, that is why this field is still exciting. Veterinary medicine is becoming more advanced, but the core responsibility remains the same: understand the patient in front of you and act before it is too late.
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