Manual and mechanical ventilation and anaesthesia

Anaesthesia monitoring is a routine part of veterinary nurses' daily responsibilities. With mechanical ventilators being one of the next pieces of equipment purchased in veterinary practices around the world, it has been recognised that aspects of monitoring and performing mechanical ventilation are not thoroughly covered in most curricula for veterinary nurses, let alone those pursuing post-graduate studies. This instills fear of using such equipment, misusing it, which could cause potential trauma to the patient, or not using it at all, resulting in a financial loss for the veterinary practice. For practices without a ventilator, there are tools available to make "bag squeezing" safer, but only if you know how to use them.

• - Understand normal respiratory anatomy and physiology
• - Identify the physiological effects of positive pressure ventilation
• - Recognise the terminology used in ventilation
• - How to give a manual positive pressure breath safely
• - An overview of different ventilator settings