Anaesthesia

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Anaesthesia is essential in veterinary medicine for ensuring the safe, effective, and humane treatment of animals. It allows veterinarians to perform necessary medical procedures while minimising pain, stress, and risk to the animal. Without anaesthesia, many vital procedures would not be possible or safe, making it an indispensable aspect of modern veterinary care.

This module aims to educate veterinarians who are returning to, or moving into companion animal practice, on the foundations of anaesthesia.

Why do an anaesthesia module?

  • Ensuring animal safety
  • Understanding anaesthetic agents
  • Managing anaesthetic complications
  • Improving pre- and post-anaesthesia care
  • Mastering monitoring techniques
  • Reducing the risk of human error
  • Building client trust
  • Increasing career confidence
  • Staying current with best practices
  • Ethical and legal responsibility

Topics

  • Basic concepts
  • Sedation and general anaesthesia
  • Anaesthetic equipment
  • The anaesthetic procedure - overview
  • Anaesthetic monitoring and complications
  • Pain assessment and postoperative analgesia

Learning objectives

  • Define the triad of general anaesthesia.
  • Define balanced anaesthesia.
  • Describe functions of anaesthesia machine and breathing system.
  • Be familiar with common problems associated with endotracheal intubation.
  • Be familiar with the ASA scoring system.
  • Be familiar with the main group of drugs, their effects, side effects and contra-indications.
  • Discuss factors affecting choice of anaesthetic breathing system.
  • Discuss different starvation protocols and their implications.
  • Discuss and recognise characteristics of patient assessment that have implications on drug protocol to be utilised.
  • List the aims of premedication.
  • Discuss factors affecting selection of premedication protocol.
  • Discuss general pharmacology, effects, and side effects of different opioids.

Contributors

Joana Chagas BVSc DiplACVAA