Welcome back to the penultimate step of Callie’s spay journey. Today we’re looking at how the vet prepares themselves for surgery, how the nurses prepare the patient and the procedure itself.
Infection Control
The vet will remove all their hand and wrist jewellery. They give their hands a thorough clean using handwash and a scrub brush to remove any dirt or contamination using the WHO handwash protocol. They will then do a second scrub using an antibacterial wash calle
d “Sterileum” again using the WHO handwash protocol. The vet will then put on their gloves in a sterile manner, ensuring they don’t touch anything other than their surgical kit, the patient and the surgical drapes. All equipment used during the procedure has been fully sterilized prior to the procedure, using an autoclave.
Surgical Instruments
The surgical kit contains four different types of forceps (tweezer-like instruments), two types of scissors, a scalpel blade holder, towel clamps to hold the drape in place and a pair of needle holders. 
Although this is the standard surgical kit we use different pieces of equipment for different surgical procedures.
We clip and scrub the surgical site differently for each procedure. This is the standard clip for a spay, we scrub the surgical site using a cross hatch scrubbing method with a chlorhexidine scrub. We leave this for a five minute contact time then apply surgical spirit. If we were scrubbing an eye or an open wound we would use iodine.
Patient Monitoring
Our dedicated team of nurses monitor patients throughout their day; pre-op, whilst under anaesthetic and throughout recovery. Whilst under anaesthetic we monitor; oxygen saturation, heart rate, respiratory rate, jaw tone, ocular (eye) reflexes, pulse quality and rate, ECG, temperature, blood pressure, reflexes and carbon dioxide levels. We use equipment to help us with different aspects of these measurements but our BEST asset is a well trained nurse!
We also lubricate the eyes throughout the procedure to prevent ulcers.
Every drug administered and every change in every parameter is recorded on Callie’s anaesthetic chart. This helps us to monitor trends in her anaesthetic allowing us to change and adjust the levels of anaesthetic agent accordingly to maintain the optimum depth of anaesthesia.
Come back again on 29th December to find out about the recovery process and to see Callie back at home after her procedure.
If you have any questions or concerns about neutering contact the client care team on PetsApp or call on 01772 639800 OR 01253 766352.
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