Curious what others consider a safe daily load in vet oncology. We’re two techs handling about 10 chemo patients plus 5–6 new consults on Mondays with one Class II BSC and CSTDs, and I’m spending roughly 40% of the day on caregiver education and side effect triage (QOL scales, Cerenia/Zofran plans, neutropenia calls). If you’ve found staffing ratios or scheduling tweaks that protect chemo accuracy and still give owners enough support time, what numbers are working for you?
With one Class II BSC we cap Mondays at 8 chemo slots and push 5–6 new consults to Tue/Wed; when we were doing both, , it felt unsafe fast. The biggest saver was turning that ‘40%’ education into two scheduled call blocks (11:30–12 and 4–4:30) plus a templated discharge covering Cerenia/Zofran and neutropenia thresholds, which cut walk-ins and phone tag. Tiny caveat: if you have to keep Mondays heavy, stagger vesicants so only one is running at a time.
Mondays were chaos for us too (); two techs, one Class II BSC, and 10 chemos + consults felt unsafe, so we turned that ‘40%’ into a midday triage block (2×20 min) and pushed the rest into a templated discharge email. Pre-priming CSTD lines and staging labeled spill kits outside the hood cut our hood time enough to keep flow moving. It only works if docs honor no add‑ons before the block — do you have a CSR who can run the QOL scale script?
It’s like trying to fit a gorilla in a phone booth when you overload those Mondays! We found staggering the new consults over the week really helped; gives us breathing room without feeling like we’re juggling flaming torches. I think @lucas_w89 has a good point about dedicated triage blocks too – it can really streamline those interactions.