Anesthesia Essentials: A Virtual Training Program for Safer Veterinary Anesthesia
Anesthesia Essentials is a structured 10-hour course designed to improve patient safety, team confidence, and anesthetic outcomes.
- Key Features:
- Virtual, asynchronous, self-paced course
- Designed for veterinarians, technicians, and nursing staff
- Ideal for hospitals and organizations aiming to standardize practices and manage risk
- Reduces training burden and bottlenecks, ensuring in-person training is focused and effective
- Applicable to general practice and referral settings
- Focused on real-world decision-making, not just theory
- Built from specialist-level expertise in veterinary anesthesia
Module 1: Introduction to Safe Anesthesia and Risk Management
- Anesthesia risk
- Human cognitive factors and sources of error
- Team dynamics and communication
- Safety culture
- Checklists
- Incident reporting
Module 2: Anesthesia Machines and Equipment
- Hour 1: Parts and functions of the anesthesia machine and breathing circuit
Topics: purpose and function of the anesthesia machine, gas supply systems, vaporizers, breathing systems and circuits, scavenging systems - Hour 2: Safety checks, use, and routine maintenance of the anesthesia machine
Topics: “know your machine” learner walkthrough, basic uses of the machine (e.g. how to give a manual breath), machine checkout and leak testing, troubleshooting, daily and weekly maintenance, overview of when professional servicing is required
Module 3: Designing an Anesthetic Plan
- Hour 1: Pharmacology overview
Topics: sedatives and tranquilizers, analgesic drugs, induction drugs, maintenance drugs, and adjunctive drugs (anti-nausea, etc.) - Hour 2: Protocol construction
Topics: matching drugs to patient, procedure, and environment, balanced anesthesia, anticipation of complications before they occur
Module 4: Preparing Patients for Anesthesia
Topics: pre-anesthetic assessment, diagnostics, fasting guidelines, peri-anesthetic medication management, client communication
Module 5: Monitoring Anesthetized Patients
Topics: ECG, capnography, pulse oximetry, blood pressure monitoring, temperature monitoring and support, depth of anesthesia, trend analysis, goal-directed anesthesia, vigilance
Module 6: Introduction to Anesthetic Complications and Troubleshooting
Topics: hypotension, hypoventilation/apnea, bradycardia, hypothermia, airway obstruction, pain
Module 7: Recovering Patients from Anesthesia
Topics: physiologic priorities during recovery, analgesia and pain scoring, airway and ventilation risks, monitoring standards, causes of delayed recovery from anesthesia, discharge criteria and handoff communication
What Your Team Will Gain
- Improved anesthetic safety and reduced complications
- Greater confidence in monitoring and clinical decision-making
- Standardized safety protocols across your practice
- Earlier detection of complications before they become critical events
- A safety culture that expands beyond anesthesia
Format & Delivery
- On-demand, self-paced learning
- High-quality animations and visual explanations
- Case-based interactive content
- Designed for team-wide implementation
- Annual recertification and focused review of key safety concepts
Additional Courses in Development
- Anesthesia Ventilators
- Equine Anesthesia
- Exotic Animal Anesthesia
- Veterinary Pain Management
- Patient Safety Systems for Hospital Managers
