St. Francis Animal Hospital

11/11/2024

We will be closing early today at 4:00 pm for staff training. We will reopen at 8 am Tuesday. Thank you for your understanding!

10/31/2024

Happy Halloween, and Happy Diwali! Let's see those festive pets 🍂🍁

10/25/2024

Happy Birthday to our Certified Veterinary Technician, Mickayla!

10/19/2024

As National Veterinary Technician Week and our Staff Appreciation Week are drawing to a close, we want to thank everyone who reached out with kind words this week. Our clients are the best, and you are the reason that our staff can continue doing the hard work required of a veterinary technician, veterinary assistant, customer service representative, and practice manager!

Thank you to each and every staff member who makes St Francis the excellent practice that it is!

10/17/2024

Our veterinary superheroes of the day today are our practice manager Molly and assistant practice manager Marie! In a veterinary clinic, there are so many tasks that need to done that you might not ever think about. Practice managers never have a dull moment. They are responsible for day-to-day tasks like ordering medications and surgical supplies, managing schedules (including the scheduling of clients/patients as well as employee schedules), and maintaining clinic equipment. Is a computer on the fritz or are we running low on 4-0 Monocryl suture? Does the practice management software need an update? Is there a leak in the bathroom? Our practice managers handle it all!

Veterinary clinics are businesses, and like any business, they need to be financially sound to thrive. Our veterinary practice managers oversee the financial aspects of the clinic, which include budgeting, managing payroll, and controlling expenditures. They monitor the clinic’s financial health by keeping track of revenue, ensuring billing and invoicing processes run smoothly. They are also responsible for inventory management and negotiating with vendors for supplies and equipment.

The veterinary industry is heavily regulated, and it’s the job of the practice managers to ensure the clinic remains compliant with all local, state, and federal regulations. This includes overseeing proper handling and disposal of medications, maintaining up-to-date licenses for veterinarians, and ensuring the clinic follows all protocols regarding controlled substances.

We aren't exaggerating when we say that the clinic would fall apart without the practice managers (literally; Molly and Marie have a toolbox!). Molly and Marie have both been a part of St Francis for over 20 years, and St Francis would not be what it is today without them. Please give them a huge THANK YOU today!

10/16/2024

Today, we are recognizing our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs)! CSRs are one of the unsung heroes in a veterinary clinic. They are on the front lines, helping to triage sick and injured patients, greeting clients and patients as they enter the clinic, dispensing medications and food, and sometimes acting as Air Traffic Control to help extra nervous patients navigate through the lobby safely.

CSRs are sometimes subject to intense, raw emotions when people have to make difficult phone calls or are coming in to receive hard news, and we are constantly impressed by their ability to hold space for those particularly meaningful interactions.

CSRs have to be well-versed in clinic policies, including how to schedule surgeries and specialty lab tests, how to triage the urgency of a pet's medical condition, and how clinic pricing structures and payment options work. Our CSRs also help to translate complicated medical terminology into understandable terms to make sure that clients have all the information they need in order to provide the best care and make the more informed decisions for their pets.

Phew! So much goes into working at the front desk of a veterinary clinic! Our CSRs are capable of handling a challenging role and they do it all with smiles on their faces. Next time you visit St Francis, take a moment to thank them for their hard work!

10/15/2024

Congratulations to our Assistant Practice Manager and vet tech extraordinaire Marie at winning yesterday's drawing from Veterinary Hospitals Association! We know she's pretty special but we love that others have recognized it, too! Thank you, Marie, for all you do

🎉 Huge congratulations to Marie, Veterinary Technician at St. Francis Animal Hospital in Roseville, MN, for winning today’s Vet Tech Appreciation Week drawing! 🎉 Our amazing friends at PetScript Pharmacy are treating her to lunch as a well-deserved reward! 🥳🍽️

Marie has been with St Francis for over 20 years, wearing so many hats as the senior vet tech and assistant practice manager while managing DEA and inventory. Her client service skills are outstanding, she handles even the spiciest patients with ease, and she juggles an incredible number of tasks—all while training and mentoring others. 💪🐾

From troubleshooting equipment and managing inventory to handling tough client situations, Marie does it all! St Francis wouldn’t be the same without her leadership. Thank you for all that you do, Marie! 💙

10/15/2024

Happy Tuesday! Today, we are honoring the role of our veterinary assistants. Veterinary assistants provide essential support in a clinic setting because one thing that medicine requires is lots and lots of extra hands! Whether that involves cleaning exam rooms, helping clients get their pets in and out of the building, restraining a pet for a blood draw, comforting a patient while they recover from anesthesia, or taking a medical history so that the doctor has an accurate sense of what might be causing a patient's issues, veterinary assistants are truly involved in every part of the clinic. Veterinary assistants need to have a strong background in animal behavior, particularly because we practice Fear Free handling at St. Francis. We rely on our assistants to handle patients with TLC while still making it safe for the doctors and technicians to do their jobs. Assistants have a lot of training in veterinary medicine, including learning about vaccination protocols, preventative care recommendations, what medications do and how to administer them, and how to ask the best questions to help understand what might be going on with a sick pet. The assistant role is one that can be tough physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Our veterinary assistants are often quietly working in the background, so please post a comment to call them out and say thank you for their hard work!

[Thank you to Buddy Mack, Delta, and Cause for Paws kitties for posing for photos!]

10/14/2024

National Vet Tech Week has historically been a day to honor the work of credentialed veterinary technicians. What does it mean to be credentialed? It means that a Certified Veterinary Technician (CVT) has advanced training AND has passed a national board exam. This ensures that they have both an academic and a hands-on knowledge base that covers everything from how the kidneys function to how to prepare a patient for an aseptic surgical procedure. CVTs are to veterinary medicine what registered nurses are to human medicine.

At St. Francis Animal Hospital, our veterinary technicians are the heart and soul of the clinic. They help to ensure patient safety and comfort, from the moment they walk in the door until they leave. A veterinary technician can prepare a patient for a surgical or dental procedure, induce and monitor anesthesia, safely navigate them through recovery, and provide that pet's owners with all of the information needed for a successful healing process. Vet techs administer vaccinations and help clients decide what vaccines are right for their pets based on lifestyle and activities. Veterinary technicians are essential in emergency situations, capable of rapidly placing IV catheters to administer life-saving drugs, collecting vital signs and blood samples to help the doctors know how to treat patients, and monitoring patients closely to confirm that they are responding to treatments as expected.

And of course, vet techs provide hugs and snuggles as often as needed to make sure patients know they are safe!

Veterinary technicians are often unseen, working hard in the surgical, diagnostic, and treatment parts of the clinic. National Vet Tech Week is an opportunity to highlight all the hard work they do, and to thank them for making St Francis run!

Tomorrow, we'll shift the focus to another essential role: the veterinary assistants!

10/13/2024

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐕𝐞𝐭 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤!

October 13th through October 19th is National Veterinary Technician Week! Founded in 1993, National Veterinary Technician Week is an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of credentialed veterinary technicians in veterinary clinics and to veterinary medicine as a whole. At St. Francis, we use this week as a chance to honor and acknowledge all of our staff members, including our assistants, customer service representatives, and managers. It takes an amazingly wide variety of skills to get through a day in a veterinary clinic, from cleaning kennels to setting up anesthesia equipment, from soothing nervous pets and pet parents to examining blood under the microscope, and from ordering medications and supplies to researching new vaccines. We couldn't possibly do it all without our skilled team!

Stay tuned all week as we celebrate their dedication, share behind-the-scenes stories, and give you a glimpse of what it’s like to walk in their shoes. Let’s kick off this special week by giving a big shoutout to all the hardworking vet techs, veterinary assistants, CSRs, and managers out there! Drop a comment below and show them some love. ❤️

10/04/2024

Cause for Paws is currently running two fundraisers to support their wonderful cat rescue! One is for holiday greenery from Gertens and the other is for Butter Braids and Cake Rolls. Please follow the link below to order.

https://www.causeforpawsmn.org

10/03/2024

𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐩

Cats can be notoriously fastidious about where they go to the bathroom. From kittenhood, they have a natural instinct to urinate and defecate in a sandy area that allows them to bury their waste. Most of the time, if provided an appropriate litter box, cats will use their box reliably, but some cats have higher standards or are more particular than others. House soiling, or urinating and/or defecating outside of a litter box, is a difficult behavior to manage in cats. Here are a few suggestions to set your cats up for success with their litter box habits:

• Make sure to provide enough litter boxes for the number of cats in your home. The minimum number of boxes recommended is one box per cat plus one (so, 2 boxes for a single cat, 3 boxes for two cats, etc). Each box should be in a different location. Two boxes located right next to each other are like having two stalls in a single bathroom rather than having two separate bathrooms.
• If you have a multi-level house, each floor of the house should have at least one box.
• Boxes should be scooped daily and fully emptied and washed every 2 to 4 weeks depending on what type of cat litter you are using.
• Plastic boxes should be completely replaced once a year, since plastic will eventually absorb odor no matter how fastidious you are about cleaning them.

In general, cats have the following preferences for litter boxes:
• Open boxes are preferred over covered boxes
• Clumping litter is preferred over non-clumping litter
• Unscented litter is preferred over scented litter
• Quiet spaces are preferred over noisy spaces or spaces with sudden loud sounds such as near a furnace
• A box that is at least 1.5 times the length of the cat’s body is preferred over a smaller box
• A box located away from food and water sources is preferred to one located near food and water

If your cat has always been reliable about using their litter box and then suddenly starts going outside their box, it’s always a good idea to schedule a vet visit to screen for medical causes such as a urinary tract infection, bladder stones, or organ dysfunction such as kidney disease before assuming that it is a behavioral problem. Here’s to making sure our companions always think inside the box!

09/27/2024

**We are back up and running!**

Our phones and internet are down. We are working hard to restore them! We will keep everyone posted.

09/12/2024

We will be closed from 1-2:15 PM today for a staff meeting.

09/09/2024

Has your pet ever been diagnosed with a torn cranial cruciate ligament (also called an ACL)? A torn cruciate ligament can lead to chronic pain, and it can be overwhelming to suddenly be faced with prospect of your pet needing knee surgery. The team over at Animal Emergency & Referral Center of Minnesota wrote an excellent overview of what a cruciate ligament tear is and what treatment options are available. Check it out here!

Discover insights from Dr. Meyers, a board-certified veterinary surgeon, on Cranial Cruciate Ligament (CCL) injuries in dogs.

09/05/2024

𝐎𝐡 𝐍𝐨- 𝐅𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬!

Our mild winter this past year combined with our hot, humid summer has unfortunately been a perfect recipe for a robust flea population. We have seen more patients with fleas this month than we have in years! Fleas can be very bothersome, causing itching, skin rashes, and skin infections. Fleas can also carry diseases that can make pets sick, and fleas are contagious to most mammals (including humans!).

To protect your pets, keep a close eye on their behavior. If you notice excessive scratching, red bumps, or tiny black specks (also known as flea dirt) in their fur, it might be time to take action. Don’t assume that your pet is itchy because of allergies, especially if they have never had issues with allergies before. A suddenly itchy pet could have a flea infestation and should be checked by a veterinarian to determine the best course of action.

Preventing flea infestations is far easier than getting rid of fleas once they have invaded your pet and your home. Flea preventatives include oral preventatives such as Nexgard or Nexgard Plus and topical options such as Revolution Plus. Flea prevention isn’t just for the warmer months—using veterinary-approved preventatives year-round is essential to keeping these pests at bay.

If you know you are dealing with an active flea infestation in your home, maintaining a clean environment is essential to ridding your home of fleas. Regularly wash your pet’s bedding and vacuum your home to remove flea eggs and larvae. You may want to enlist the help of a professional exterminator. Remember that if one pet has fleas, it’s crucial to treat all pets in the household to prevent ongoing re-infestation.

If you see fleas, or if your pet is suddenly very itchy and you worry they might have fleas, we can help. Let’s work together to keep our pets flea-free!

09/02/2024

Happy Birthday to our Certified Veterinary Technician, Abby!

09/01/2024

Happy Birthday to our Certified Veterinary Technician, Baylee!