Surgical Techniques for Early Career Veterinarians: Beyond Spays and Neuters

Course overview

This course covers essential components of basic surgical techniques for early career veterinarians in the general practice setting. We will review fundamental surgical principles of tissue handling, surgical material selection, drain and bandage selection and how to thoroughly perform an exploratory celiotomy. We will also individually review a selection of common surgical cases seen by early career veterinarians to include: Abscess repair, Aural hematoma repair, Gastrotomy, Gastropexy, Enterotomy, Cystotomy, Tail amputation, Eye enucleation, Mass removals, and Splenectomy. Participants will be provided with templates and tools along with handouts detailing best practices for implementing each surgical procedure. After each section of the lecture, participants will be able to perform the surgical technique discussed on cadavers provided for the lecture. These lectures will be focused solely on the surgical techniques themselves and will not be covering intraoperative or post operative medication or pain control commonly associated with these procedures. Participants will be given references where they can refresh that knowledge prior to performing the procedure in the clinical setting.