COVID-19 precautions are only one part of veterinary workplace safety. A safe clinic must also control bites and lifting injuries, chemical and drug exposure, unauthorized entry, clutter and fire hazards, anesthetic gases, radiation, and zoonotic disease. The practical goal is an all-hazards routine in which infection control stays in place without pushing ordinary safeguards aside.
What veterinary workplace safety includes
Philip J. Seibert Jr., CVT, made this point in the AAHA Trends Magazine article published August 4, 2021: attention to pandemic precautions should not eclipse “all the other things that could hurt us on the job.” His article is an editorial, not a current regulatory standard, so clinics must confirm the rules that apply in their country, state, province, and facility. Its central framework remains useful because the hazards are present whether a clinic is operating normally, using curbside service, or responding to an outbreak.
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| Hazard area | What can go wrong | Core control described in the article |
|---|---|---|
| Animal handling and lifting | Bites, scratches, escapes, strains, and back injuries | Use appropriate restraint, let clients remove animals when practical, and lift with correct posture. |
| Chemicals, drugs, and biological material | Contamination of hands, food, surfaces, or clothing | Keep eating and drinking in sanitary areas away from treatment, examination, laboratory, and housing spaces. |
| Security and violence | Unauthorized entry or unsafe encounters with people | Secure exterior doors unless they are monitored or in immediate use; consider controlled access for non-client doors. |
| Housekeeping and electricity | Trips, falling objects, blocked exits, fires, and wasted time finding supplies | Put supplies away, keep routes clear, and avoid using power strips simply to multiply outlets. |
| Anesthesia | Waste-gas exposure, leaks, and avoidable patient or staff exposure | Use scavenging, inspect circuits, maintain equipment, and ventilate recovery areas. |
| Radiography | Unnecessary occupational radiation dose | Apply ALARA, use dosimetry, leave the room when possible, and use protective equipment when staying. |
| Zoonotic disease | Transmission from animals or contaminated surfaces | Use barrier protection, wash hands, and keep food and beverages away from contamination. |
Handle animals and lift safely when workflows change
Curbside service can remove a useful safety cue
When a client is present, staff can often see how an animal behaves with its owner and ask for help getting it out of a vehicle. Curbside workflows may remove that context. Seibert’s article describes more bites during curbside service in 2020 and cautions that staff can become less attentive to restraint when clients are absent. That observation is qualitative; it is not a numerical bite-rate estimate.
Where practical, have the client remove the animal from the vehicle. This can reduce the chance that a staff member reaches into a confined space where a frightened or territorial animal may react. The clinic still needs a plan for animals whose owners cannot safely handle them, including appropriate equipment, trained personnel, and a controlled route from the vehicle to the treatment area.
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Do not trade restraint for speed
Workload pressure encourages shortcuts: carrying an unrestrained patient, opening a kennel without a plan, or assuming that a familiar animal will behave as usual. Match restraint to the patient’s species, size, medical condition, and observed behavior. Communicate who is holding, who is opening doors, and where the animal will go next. Keep escape routes and secondary doors in mind before moving a patient.
Personal protective equipment does not replace sound handling. Gloves, gowns, or other barriers may protect skin and clothing, but they cannot prevent a bite caused by poor positioning or an unsecured patient.
Lift patients and equipment with a deliberate technique
The article recommends correct posture when lifting patients or other objects but does not set a universal safe lifting limit. Use a team lift or mechanical aid when a load is heavy, awkward, unstable, or difficult for one person to control. Bring the load close to your body, bend at the hips and knees rather than rounding your back, avoid twisting while carrying, and clear the destination before lifting. A written weight threshold should come from the clinic’s risk assessment and applicable local requirements, not from a guessed number.
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Separate food from clinical work
Treatment rooms, examination rooms, laboratories, and animal-housing areas can contain biological and chemical contaminants. Store, prepare, and consume meals, snacks, and beverages only in sanitary locations designated for that purpose. A closed container does not make a treatment counter a safe dining area: spills, contaminated gloves, aerosolized material, and contact with shared surfaces can still transfer hazards.
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Make the safe choice easy by providing a clearly identified eating area, a place to store food, handwashing access, and a routine for cleaning shared surfaces. Staff should remove gloves and other contaminated protective clothing before eating or drinking and wash their hands at the appropriate sink.
Use barriers and hygiene together
Barrier protection limits contact with blood, feces, urine, saliva, respiratory secretions, and contaminated equipment. Select protection for the task, change it when contaminated, and dispose of or launder it according to the clinic’s procedures. Handwashing remains necessary because gloves can tear, hands can become contaminated during removal, and not every surface touched during patient care is covered.
Secure the clinic against unauthorized access
Lock more than the client-facing entrance
A locked front door does not control every route into a veterinary facility. The article recommends keeping exterior doors locked unless they are being monitored or are in immediate use. Apply that principle to side, rear, staff, laboratory, pharmacy, and boarding-area entrances as appropriate for the building.
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Include people-safety procedures
Access control works best when staff know what to do when a door is propped open, a stranger enters a restricted area, or a person becomes threatening. Define who contacts management or emergency services, where staff can move to safety, and how to protect animals without placing a person in greater danger. Train new and temporary staff on those steps rather than relying on informal knowledge.
Remove clutter, protect exits, and use electricity safely
Put supplies away instead of setting them down
Clutter creates several hazards at once: falling materials, trips, blocked emergency exits, harder cleaning, slower access to supplies, and increased fire risk. Seibert’s memorable reminder is, “Don’t put it down, put it away.” Store frequently used items where they can be reached without climbing or stretching, and return them after use.
- Keep corridors, stairs, door swings, and emergency exits unobstructed.
- Do not stack materials where they can fall onto people or animals.
- Keep floors dry and remove packaging, cords, and discarded supplies promptly.
- Use labeled storage so staff do not leave items in walkways while searching.
- Include kennels, recovery spaces, and exam-room corners in housekeeping checks.
Do not multiply outlets without checking the load
The article cautions that using power strips merely to create more outlets can cause overheating and fire. Ordinary appliances, tools, equipment, and convenience devices should be plugged directly into wall outlets rather than into outlet-multiplying devices. Where a power strip or surge protector is permitted by the equipment instructions and facility policy, inspect it for damage, avoid overloading it, and do not chain strips together. Electrical requirements and fire-code rules vary, so have questionable installations reviewed by a qualified professional.
Prevent waste anesthetic-gas exposure
Waste anesthetic gas is an occupational hazard that requires engineering controls and maintenance, not just reminders to be careful. The article’s recommendations can be turned into this operating sequence:
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- Fill vaporizers in a ventilated area. Follow the equipment manufacturer’s filling procedure and prevent spills.
- Use a scavenging system for gas anesthesia. Confirm that the system is connected and functioning before induction.
- Check the breathing circuit for leaks for every patient. A circuit that worked earlier in the day may be disconnected, damaged, or incorrectly assembled now.
- Maintain the scavenger and replace adsorption material before saturation. Record maintenance so a cartridge is not left in service beyond its useful capacity.
- Maintain general ventilation in recovery areas. Recovery patients can continue to exhale anesthetic gases after the procedure.
- Avoid tank or mask induction. The article specifically identifies these practices as avoidable exposure risks.
Use the manufacturer’s directions for inspection, servicing, and replacement intervals. If staff smell anesthetic, see a damaged hose, or suspect a leak, stop and correct the problem through the clinic’s incident and maintenance procedure rather than continuing under the assumption that ventilation will solve it.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Apply ALARA during radiography
Radiation safety follows ALARA: keep exposure “As Low As Reasonably Achievable.” The objective is not zero imaging; it is obtaining the needed diagnostic image while minimizing dose to staff and patients.
| Situation | Action | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Routine imaging | Leave the room during exposure whenever possible. | Distance and shielding reduce occupational dose. |
| Staff must remain | Wear a protective apron. | Provides shielding when leaving is not practical. |
| Manual patient restraint is unavoidable | Use protective gloves and position yourself appropriately. | Limits exposure to hands and body while maintaining control. |
| Ongoing monitoring | Wear a personal dosimetry badge. | Tracks an individual’s accumulated occupational exposure. |
| Image positioning | Position the patient carefully before exposure. | Reduces retakes and therefore avoidable additional exposures. |
| Staffing | Share radiography duties. | Prevents one person from receiving all routine exposure. |
A dosimetry badge is a monitoring device, not a shield and not permission to skip other controls. Follow the badge provider’s wearing, placement, and exchange instructions, and review results through the clinic’s radiation-safety process. Protective aprons and gloves also need inspection, correct storage, and replacement when damaged; equipment alone does not ensure compliance.
Reduce zoonotic-disease transmission
Animal contact can transmit disease through direct contact, droplets, contaminated surfaces, bites, scratches, and hand-to-face transfer. Use barrier protection suited to the task, wash hands at the required moments, and keep eating and drinking away from animal-care areas. Hand hygiene is needed after removing gloves because glove removal can contaminate the hands and because gloves do not cover every touched surface.
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Make hygiene practical at the point of care: place handwashing supplies where staff can use them without crossing a contaminated area, provide appropriate waste containers, and clean high-touch surfaces according to the clinic’s procedures. During an outbreak or when handling a suspected zoonotic infection, follow current public-health and veterinary guidance for the organism and jurisdiction; the 2021 article does not establish today’s disease-specific requirements.
Turn the recommendations into a daily safety routine
At opening
- Confirm that exterior and restricted doors are secured or actively monitored.
- Walk treatment, examination, laboratory, housing, and recovery areas for blocked routes, wet floors, unstable stacks, and misplaced supplies.
- Check that anesthesia scavenging connections, ventilation, and required maintenance records are in order.
- Verify that radiography protective equipment and dosimetry arrangements are available to the staff assigned to imaging.
- Restock handwashing and barrier-protection supplies.
During patient care
- Plan restraint and the route from vehicle or kennel before opening a door.
- Use team lifting or an aid for awkward patients and loads.
- Keep food and beverages out of clinical and housing areas.
- Return instruments, medications, and supplies to designated storage after use.
- Correct leaks, damaged cords, blocked exits, or access-control failures immediately through the clinic’s reporting process.
At closing
- Remove waste and contaminated disposable items according to facility procedures.
- Restore clear walkways and emergency exits.
- Secure non-client doors and confirm that equipment is left in its intended state.
- Record anesthesia, radiation, electrical, or handling incidents and near misses so controls can be improved.
What this 2021 guidance can—and cannot—decide
The AAHA article is valuable as a reminder to look beyond COVID-19, but it does not provide a universal lifting limit, a complete radiation program, a current anesthetic-gas standard, or jurisdiction-specific legal requirements. Those details depend on the clinic’s equipment, building, workforce, patients, and governing authorities. Use the article’s hazard list and controls as a discussion framework, then check current occupational-safety, fire, radiation, infection-control, and veterinary-practice requirements that apply to your location.
The strongest safety program is not a single product purchase. It combines engineering controls such as scavenging and secure doors, administrative controls such as training and shared radiography duties, safe work practices such as planned restraint and handwashing, and appropriate protective equipment. Reviewing all four layers helps prevent a new COVID procedure, staffing change, or curbside workflow from creating a different hazard elsewhere in the clinic.
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