Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Mock surgery, part deux

Today's procedure went so much better than anyone (teachers included) had expected. Actually, we didn't really know what to expect. Thumbelina was the kitty that exploded off the table last time students tried to anesthetize her. We decided to try "kitty magic" for her pre-anesthetic meds. This is a cocktail of Ketamine-Buprenorphine-Domitor that I gave IM. Although I had Propofol ready to administer if necessary, "Thumbs" was intubatable within about 20 minutes with no additional meds. After having her on isoflurane for about 5 minutes, I reversed the Domitor with Antisedan and did have Narcan available to reverse the Buprenex if necessary. It was pretty easy to keep her at a surgical plane of anesthesia with 1% isoflurane. I had Atropine drawn up and ready but she maintained a heart rate of 120 and respiration rate of 35-40 throughout the procedure so didn't use it.

B put in a 24G IV catheter like she'd done it all her life, completely bloodless and on the first stick! R was our surgeon this time and almost finished putting in her stitches when I (and one of the teachers) started to get a little worried that our cat might be a little too deep. Lesson to be learned here -- a little too deep at 1% iso can become totally awake at 0.5% in no time flat! The team that does her actual spay next week should probably read our notes. Although, during an actual surgical procedure they will probably want her to be that deep. K was our floater this time and did a great job keeping us all supplied with the stuff we'd forgotten to set up in advance. Its a good thing we had her.

Tomorrow it is Chester's turn. And I will be the surgeon this time. I'm nervous about 1) putting sutures in real live skin instead of our training "legs" and 2) having to use Dr Mac's favorite suture material which is a mono-filament. Better practice a little tonight.

More tomorrow ...

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the post, I was researching kitty magic for my cat with an elbow fracture. Any idea how long it takes for the sedation to wear off?

    ReplyDelete

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