Monogramming Bandages and Splints
Before sending a patient home with a bandage or splint, we sometimes monogram the bandage by cutting the patient’s name from a colorful self-adhesive bandage. Owners really appreciate the thoughtful gesture.
Isabelle Cormier, RVT
Grey Cove Veterinary Health Centre
New Brunswick, Canada
To help attach microchip or rabies tags to their metal rings, we “open” the ring using a staple remover and advance the tag onto the ring.
Cindy Utech, AHT
Creating an Instrument Binder
Our technician assistants are usually the ones to clean, wrap, and autoclave surgical instruments. To help them and new employees with this process and to ensure consistency, I created an instrument binder. I took photographs of all our instruments before and after wrapping them in autoclave tubing. In a large binder with photo pages, I labeled each instrument’s photos, including instructions on how to clean and wrap each instrument and whether it requires gas sterilization or autoclaving. The photo label also includes the instrument’s cubby location code (e.g., C3): the letter corresponds to the cubby row and the number to the column. The binder also includes step-by-step pictures for folding surgical gowns.
Megan Niehoff, CVT
Columbus Countryside Veterinary Clinic
Columbus, Wisconsin
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Dental Checkup: Extraction of Fractured Teeth in Captive Sea Lions
