Vet Clin Food Anim 21 (2005) xi–xii

Preface

Emergency Medicine and Critical

Care of Cattle

Sheila M. McGuirk, DVM, PhD Simon F. Peek, BVSc, MRCVS, PhD

Guest Editors

While food animal practitioners play an increasingly important role in

health maintenance, productivity, animal management, and consulting,
emergency care is still an area of primary veterinary involvement.
Emergencies are a certainty in cattle practice and veterinarians are judged
on their ability to respond, assess and react in a timely fashion. In putting
together this edition of Veterinary Clinics of North America: Food Animal
Practice, we have recruited veterinary clinician authors to address some of
the most commonly encountered medical, surgical, and reproductive
emergency conditions that practitioners encounter. Recognizing the value
of selected individual calves and cows, we also include selected aspects of
critical care that are provided in some private practices and in referral
hospitals. Conspicuous by its absence is a chapter dedicated to fluid therapy,
but the topic was addressed in detail in the November 1999 Veterinary
Clinics of North America: Food Animal Practice issue and updated in
November 2003. By and large we have taken a systems-based approach to
emergency care with separate chapters relating to abdominal, reproductive,
and respiratory cases. Contemporary therapeutic approaches to emergency
conditions are featured in the chapters on pain management, treatment of
toxic cattle, blood/component therapy and toxicologic emergencies. The
importance of cloned and transgenic calves and their unique needs
prompted us to dedicate a chapter to this subject. We are extremely grateful
to the contributing authors and indebted to John Vassallo and the editorial
staff at Saunders/Elsevier for their expertise and patience.
0749-0720/05/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cvfa.2005.07.003 vetfood.theclinics.com
xii PREFACE

We hope that this issue proves a useful reference material for

practitioners, hospital-based clinicians, and those with a general or specific
interest in the provision of emergency and critical care to cattle.

Sheila M. McGuirk, DVM, PhD

Simon F. Peek, BVSc, MRCVS, PhD
Department of Medical Sciences
University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Veterinary Medicine
2015 Linden Drive West
Madison, WI 53706, USA
E-mail addresses: mcguirks@svm.vetmed.wisc.edu,
peeks@svm.vetmed.wisc.edu