Clients call with concerns, but often they don’t really understand what’s wrong, but they know something isn’t right. If we don’t ask the right questions, we could be misled and respond incorrectly. If we take our lead off their assessment and they’re wrong in that assessment, bad things may happen, and the horse ends up suffering the consequences.
We must be effective at doing triage so patients get the best care possible and in a timely manner. In this series of weekly topics, we will help you discern what may be happening but remember this: if a client feels like it’s an emergency, we prefer you treat it as an emergency. Let the doctor on call handle the discussion from that point.