Anaesthetising and performing surgery of any type on any animal is a complicated thing. It requires skill, knowledge, organisation and monitoring… and it’s a team effort to provide all this.
When your pet is having a surgery with us at Karingal Vet Hospital a veterinarian and veterinary nurse are assigned to your pet. You may choose who this will be or alternatively it will be determined by the practice.
While your pet is anaesthetised and is recovering your pet’s dedicated veterinary nurse constantly monitors a number of vital parameters to ensure the safety of the anaesthesia. These parameters include heart rate, body temperature, respiratory rate, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood as well as blood pressure and other important indicators of anaesthetic depth.
All this information is recorded onto an electronic anaesthethic chart that also has all the pet’s details, medications given, intravenous fluid rates and emergency drug doses already calculated if needed. Each nurse has an iPad with them during an anaesthesia that they constantly input their recordings and observations into. The state-of-the-art software tracks all this data and alerts our team to any abnormalities. At the completion of the anaesthesia this detailed anaesthetic record forms part of your pet’s medical record and can be referred to in the future if your pet requires further surgery.
An example of this electronic anaesthetic chart can be seen here.