May 2024 is the 20th anniversary of Veterinary Nurse Awareness Month!
It takes two years to train as a Veterinary Nurse, requiring the completion of an extensive portfolio and many hours of practical placement work. Once qualified, a Student Veterinary Nurse (SVN) can join the British Veterinary Nursing Association and use the title Registered Veterinary Nurse (RVN.)
We are lucky to have two fantastic RVN’s here at the surgery. Many of you will have met Amber (featured in the photo with dog, Chip) and Sarah when dropping off or picking up pets for procedures. Veterinary nurses are a critical part of the veterinary team, but the work they do behind the scenes is not always recognised.
Their list of responsibilities is long and varied including;
- Dispensing medications that have been prescribed by the vet
- Setting up theatre ready for procedures
- Cleaning up theatre after procedures
- Care of inpatients
- Monitoring anaesthetics
- Maintaining patient records
- Educating and reassuring pet owners
- Running in-house diagnostic tests
- Performing minor procedures such as micro-chipping, taking blood samples, second vaccinations, dental ‘scale and polish’ and X-rays.
This is just a snippet of the varied workload of the nurses here at the surgery. We would be lost without them, so we wanted to take this opportunity to raise awareness of the important role they play and say a big THANK YOU on behalf of ourselves, our clients and their pets!