Surgical Information Packet

Please make arrangements for your pet to be dropped off on the morning of scheduled surgery, unless other arrangements have been made in advance. For example, new clients are required to have a pre-surgical visit the morning of procedure and may not have an appointment until later. At time of drop off, our team will be happy to answer any questions/ concerns and collect the enclosed / completed Authorization Form.

Our veterinary nurse will escort your pet to the surgical prepping area to wait for their surgery. If you have elected any of the recommended blood tests, our nurse will collect all blood samples and tests prior to surgery.

If any questions arise, the doctor may contact you at the number on the Authorization Form.

You are welcome to check up on your pet’s status, however, we request that you allow plenty of time for your pet’s procedure to be done. At this time, we will be able to give you an idea when your pet may be discharged. When you arrive to take your pet home, the receptionist will bill you out and the veterinary nurse will go over all discharge orders verb ally and give you a written copy. If you do not understand any instructions, please do not hesitate to ask them to go over them one more time.

We hope surgery day will be a pleasant experience. Remember, our team knows surgery can be an anxious time and we are always available to answer any and all questions concerning the up coming procedure.

We look forward to serving you and your pet on the up coming surgery day and years to come.

Our greatest concern is the well being of your pet. Before putting your pet under anesthesia, we routinely perform a full physical examination.

We also highly recommend and sometimes require that a Pre-Anesthetic Blood Profile be performed on all pets’ undergoing anesthesia to maximize patient safety. As a reminder, Pre anestric labs are required, especially for older furry family members.

The Pre-Anesthetic Blood Profile helps alert our surgeon to the presence of dehydration, anemia, infection, diabetes and / or kidney or liver disease that could complicate the procedure. These conditions may not be detected without a pre-anesthetic profile thus not allowing for the most appropriate and safest anesthetic regime to be administered. These tests are similar to those your own physician would run if you were to undergo anesthesia. In addition, these tests may be useful if your pet’s health changes to develop faster, more accurate diagnoses and treatments.

The Authorization Form you will sign on your pet’s surgery d ate will offer pre-anesthetic blood work.

1. The Quantitative Blood Count (QBC) and Pre-Anesthetic Profile which includes:

• CBC: PCV (Anemia), White Blood Cell Count (Infection) & Red Blood Cell Count (Anemia /Bleeding Disorder), Platelet Count (Clotting Disorder)
• Profile: BUN and Creatinine (Kidney), ALKP and ALT (Liver), Glucose (Sugar), Total Protein

2. Owner Elects to Decline the recommended pre-anesthetic blood tests at this time but requests that we proceed with the This is indicated by NOT checking the optional procedures.

You will notice other tests available that are not included in the above choices. We have selected tests that give the doctors a suitable overview of healthy patients. However, if the patients are in their senior years (above 7 years old) or are sick, the FULL senior profile c an be done the d ay of the procedure at the owner’s request. It has been included in the high amount estimate.

On the Feline Patient Authorization Form, our feline owners will see a FeLV/ FIV Test option. We highly recommend this test be preformed on all feline patients at least once in their lives because Feline

Leukemia and Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (Feline Aids) are viruses for which no cure exists. If your pet goes outside, we recommend administering the Feline Leukemia vaccine as well. Please ask questions if you would like to learn more about Feline Leukemia and Feline Aids.

We realize surgery and anesthesia are scary for both the owner and patient and we attempt to make surgery d ay as safe and comfortable for all involved. The physic al examination and blood work done prior to any surgical procedure allows us to best minimize anesthetic and surgical risks and maximize patient safety.

If you have any questions or hesitations about the scheduled procedure,

please do not hesitate to call us to discuss any aspect of the up coming procedure.

We use a combination of pre-anesthetic medications/injectable and / or inhalant anesthetics to achieve optimum levels of safety for your pet.

For short procedures, an injectable anesthetic is given alone that produces a good plane of surgical anesthesia with a quick recovery.

For most procedures, your pet is anesthetized and then intubated (insertion of a tube into the trachea or wind pipe). This will ensure that your pet is able to receive oxygen at all times and prevents aspiration of any fluids into the lungs.

For procedures that require minimum sedation, an injectable anesthetic is given that produces a good plane of sedation with quick recovery. Anesthesia is maintained with a gas anesthetic, Sevoflurane, which is very safe and is not metabolize d by the body. This allows us to have more control over anesthetic depth and it is less irritating to the airways. Another advantage to Sevoflurane is a quick induction using a mask verses using injectable anesthetics that require metabolism from the body.