Anesthesia

        

  Most often in veterinary medicine the surgeon and the anesthesiologist are one and the same. And so I can say that I fear anesthesia more than I fear surgery. Because, a good surgeon should be able to control the situation, but anesthesia can sometimes do unexplained bad things.

And in veterinary medicine we do not have the luxury of patient cooperation so that many procedures that could be done on humans with no anesthesia, or a local, need to have general anesthesia in our animal patients.

Therefore, we try to be extra cautious in all areas. Any pet past middle age (7 years) or any pet in questionable health, must have a complete blood chemistry and CBC before we do general anesthesia. And so, often when we do general anesthesia, we use the safest gas anesthesia available. This allows for better regulation of the level of anesthesia and for a recovery so quick that often we send home the patient on the same day as the surgery. With some safer but possibly painful procedures we might use a systemic but not gas anesthesia to allow the patient to sleep a little longer after surgery.

We use a pulse oximeter,  which is constantly giving the surgeon a message about heart rate and the amount or oxygen in the patients blood.

Our track record for elective procedures is excellent.

 

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