Statement of Professional Practice
SafetyCall International (SCI) and its Pet Poison Helpline (PPH) division is an independent, multi-disciplinary, 24/7 human and animal adverse event management and poison control center. Headquartered in Bloomington, MN, SCI/PPH is licensed by the Minnesota State Boards of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Veterinary Medicine. It is privately owned and operated by a partnership that is primarily composed of physicians, pharmacists (PharmDs), and veterinarians whose founders began working together in 1982. Since then, our practitioners have come to be internationally recognized by human and veterinary medical professionals, regulators, and professional and trade associations throughout the world.
As a multi-disciplinary adverse event management and poison control center, SafetyCall and Pet Poison Helpline are staffed with experts in clinical human and veterinary toxicology, emergency medicine, internal medicine, forensic toxicology, adverse event management/reporting, regulatory affairs, and pharmacovigilance. Collectively, our experts have managed more than three million adverse event, product safety, and poisoning cases, positively impacting the safety of products, people, and animals worldwide.
Our human medical experts include:
- Physicians with board certification in Emergency Medicine, Preventive Medicine (Occupational and
- Environmental Medicine), Addiction Medicine and Medical Toxicology
- Pharmacists (PharmDs), many of whom have completed residencies and fellowships in Clinical Toxicology and/or are Certified Specialists in Poison Information (CSPI)
- Nurses (LPNs, RNs, and BSNs), some of whom are CSPI
- Pharmacy technicians
- Paramedics and emergency medical technicians
Our veterinary team includes:
- Diplomates of the American Board of Toxicology (ABT)
- Diplomates of American Board of Veterinary Toxicology (ABVT)
- Diplomates of American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM)
- Diplomates of American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care (ACVECC)
- More than 100 certified/licensed/registered veterinary technicians, including American Veterinary Emergency Critical Care Technicians (AVECCT)
Our professional staff are the core of SCI/PPH and our most valued resource. To maintain and advance our expertise, and to help our staff grow professionally and personally, we are committed to supporting their pursuit of specialty certification and continuing education.
In addition to this promise to help our own staff develop their knowledge and expertise, SafetyCall and Pet Poison Helpline have a long-standing history of academic work focused on teaching, committee service, research, and policy development. With a formal affiliation with the University of Minnesota’s College of Pharmacy, multiple partners and staff have full and adjunct faculty appointments, and teach courses in Clinical Toxicology, Addiction Medicine, Toxinology, Herbal and Medicinal Therapeutic Agents, and others in the Graduate School. Partners and staff also have faculty appointments at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine where they team-teach Veterinary Toxicology as part of the core curriculum and participate in population medicine courses. To foster experiential training and student mentorship outside the classroom, we also offer formal clerkships and clinical rotations to pharmacy and veterinary students.
In addition to all of this, we have also fully funded multiple clinical residencies for pharmacists (7) and veterinarians (2) in partnership with Regions Hospital, a teaching hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center in St. Paul, MN, and the University of Minnesota (UMN) College of Pharmacy as well as the UMN College of Veterinary Medicine.
Because of this commitment to scholarship and the goal of advancing knowledge within the discipline for professionals and the public alike, we have been invited to lecture at many major North American medical, regulatory, and veterinary conventions, many veterinary colleges, and regulatory agencies. The list includes the FDA, EPA, and Health Canada’s PMRA. We have also published hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles, abstracts, textbook chapters, and edited multiple textbooks.
Driven by our desire to educate, we also provide complimentary scientific webinars on adverse event management, product safety, and veterinary toxicology that are attended by thousands of professionals each year and archived in our online library. To keep veterinary practitioners informed on emerging trends in toxicology, we publish quarterly newsletters with materials valuable to them, their staff, and their clients. We also maintain an online, publicly available ‘poison directory’ detailing more than 300 individual toxicants and providing information on species risks, expected severity of poisoning, clinical signs, photos, and more.
Pet Poison Helpline and SafetyCall are active members in/preferred suppliers to more than 20 professional and trade associations, including:
- The Consumer Healthcare Products Association
- The Council for Responsible Nutrition
- The Household and Commercial Products Association
- The American Herbal Products Association
- The United Natural Products Alliance
- The Natural Products Association
- The Animal Health Institute
- The Personal Care Products Council
- The American Botanical Council
- The American Society for Quality
- The Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society
- The Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business (SOCAP International)
- The American Association of Poison Control Centers
- The National Animal Supplement Council (NASC)
Participation in these organizations allows us to remain at the forefront of professional and industry knowledge and policy which contributes to our expertise and benefits our clients. We also encourage employees to be active in these associations as it helps them grow and develop into creative thought leaders committed to acting and delivering on their responsibilities.
Over the past decade, we are grateful and humbled by the accolades and awards received in recognition of our contributions. However, none are more meaningful than repeatedly being named a Top Workplace in Minnesota. This award, organized in partnership with the Minneapolis/St Paul Star Tribune newspaper, is a direct reflection of our commitment to making sure our team members are the best they can be, and are supported in everything they do. Other notable recognitions include:
- The Herbal Insight Award (2021) from the American Herbal Products Association, which recognizes a company or organization that has contributed to the furthering of knowledge and understanding of botanicals and their uses in addition to making contributions to advancing the industry.
- The Household and Commercial Products Association’s Chairman’s Award (2013)
- The Household and Commercial Products Association’s and volunteer recognition awards (Pest Management Division, 2018; Air Care Division, 2019)
With all of this, our decades of work, our leadership in the field, our commitment to scholarship and good science, we hope to accomplish one simple goal: to make the world a safer place for people and animals. It’s a job that will never be finished; it requires the constant vigilance of a dedicated few. We’re proud to have been among that few for over 35 years, and through constant betterment, care for the public, and cultivation of new leaders, experts, and educators, plan to continue for 35 more.