Theatre champions

Holder of a Certificate in Emergency and Critical Care, our Registered Veterinary Nurse Lauren particularly enjoys theatre nursing and spends, on average, 75% of her working week on theatre rotation. Who better to champion the role of the theatre nurse at 387 Vets & The West Midlands Cat Clinic during Veterinary Nursing Awareness Month! 

Theatre nurses have the really important job of looking after patient comfort and safety during procedures, as well as helping the ops list to run smoothly. This means that, in addition to ensuring theatres are fully equipped and all machines are fully functioning, theatre nurses will take and run any requested pre-op bloods to check the op is safe to proceed, prep pre-op meds and pain relief under vet supervision, clip and clean the surgical operating site for op sterility, place catheters ahead of ops for easy meds delivery in case of emergency and monitor and record patient stats to check patient safety throughout. 

This is Lauren monitoring patient stats on our multi parameter machine. She’s checking blood oxygen levels, carbon dioxide exhaled, pulse rate, blood pressure and number of breaths per minute as well as listening to the patient’s heart under anaesthesia, whilst assessing other indicators and factors to ensure the patient is safely controlled. Should any readings or observations concern her, she’s ready to respond. 

We’re proud to have a fabulous team of qualified and experienced nurses monitoring every operation we carry out in practice, helping to keep your fur babies safe.