From subtle tail twitches to silent yowls, cats have mastered the art of hiding their discomfort, leaving us humans scratching our heads feeling somewhat purr-plexed when it comes to decoding the mysteries of recognizing and managing pain in this stoic species. In this episode, we are going to sink our claws into feline osteoarthritis pain management by discussing the newest drug to hit the market designed to diminish feline osteoarthritic pain: Solensia. Solensia (frunevetmab) is a monthly injection administered at a veterinary clinic that can help control pain from osteoarthritis in cats. Ou ..read more

Are you someone who doesn’t feel confident in your anesthesia skills or knowledge?  Are you seeking resources beyond this podcast to improve your anesthesia expertise?  Veterinary professionals often find themselves crunched for time, so finding resources that will guarantee rapid results in training is crucial to advancing anesthesia knowledge. How can we integrate effective training modalities into veterinary practice that will provide meaningful educational opportunities, improve skill levels, and heighten overall job satisfaction?  With so many options out there for continui ..read more

Here at NAVAS we spend a lot of time educating veterinary professionals on safe anesthetic practices, but what about the safety of the anesthetist? In today’s episode, we are going to explore a mental health phenomenon known as second victim syndrome. Second victims are health care providers who are involved in an unanticipated adverse patient event, in a medical error, or in a patient-related injury and begin to feel personally responsible for the patient outcome, causing the provider to become traumatized by the event. As a result, veterinary professionals experience a tremendous amount of p ..read more

What fasting recommendations are you making for your elective anesthetic procedures? Are you recommending that all your patients be fasted overnight? This has been recommended by veterinarians to countless dog and cat owners for years. However, our human counterparts have changed these recommendations in recent years to shorter episodes of fasting before general anesthesia. The most recent anesthesia guidelines provided by American Animal Hospital Association have suggested a different fasting protocol for small animal patients prior to general anesthesia that look awfully similar to the updat ..read more

The holiday season is in full swing and you may be asking yourself if it’s time to invest in something new for your clinic. A new anesthetic agent, perhaps? If that’s the case, then Alfaxalone may be the new drug to help shake up your old anesthetic drug protocols. Although it has been around on the veterinary market for a few years now, Alfaxalone is the newest anesthetic induction agent and with it come several interesting and intriguing potential benefits. Our guide to explore this newfangled drug is Dr. Lane Johnson, a boarded veterinary anesthesiologist, Clinical Assistant Professor of An ..read more

Water is life’s matter and matrix, and there is no life without it. Even the founding fathers of the US understood that water was essential to sustain life, with Benjamin Franklin being quoted as saying “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”  Patients often present to veterinary hospitals with a dry well, and many of them may require diagnostics or surgery under sedation or anesthesia. You may have thought “I’ll give twice the fluid maintenance rate to this patient”, but where did this value come from? How do we empirically create an appropriate fluid therapy plan for anesthet ..read more

Imagine you are anesthetizing your last patient of the day, and the alarm for the anesthesia machine is blaring, warning that your patient’s blood pressure is far too low. The machine reads 80/40 (55). It probably doesn’t seem too hard to imagine, because anesthesia-induced hypotension is one of the most common cardiovascular complications of general anesthesia.  In this episode, host Dr. Bonnie Gatson welcomes Dr. Vaidehi Paranjape. Not only is Dr. Paranjape a board-certified veterinary anesthesiologist and assistant professor at Virgina-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, but she h ..read more

Imagine a dog limping into your clinic with its concerned owner in tow. It’s not too hard to presume that the animal is experiencing some degree of discomfort. But what about a cat who suddenly spends less time grooming? Or a dog who no longer wants to chase their favorite toy around the house for hours at a time? Our furred companions are remarkable at masking signs of pain, which may have served them well as a survival tactic from their wild roots, but now may hinder pet caregivers from providing appropriate care and honoring their animal’s quality of life. In recognition of Animal Pain Awar ..read more

Here on the NAVAS podcast, we are recognizing and honoring September as Animal Pain Awareness Month by giving our listeners a small taste of a larger episode on pain assessment that will come out later this month with Dr. Tammy Grubb. As a board-certified veterinary anesthesiologist who is an expert in companion animal pain management and an intense fan of local anesthetic agents, Dr. Grubb provides her incite and expertise on the groundbreaking drug, Nocita. Together with host, Dr. Bonnie Gatson, they will dive into Nocita’s mechanism of action, address safety concerns, discuss its use in var ..read more

If you practice medicine long enough, you may find that mistakes can happen despite our best efforts. Although anesthesia is vital to provide appropriate care in many clinical situations, it also has the potential to create adverse side effects, complications, and even life-threatening situations. For this reason, veterinary professionals providing anesthesia services should strive to promote a culture of patient safety within their practices. If this is a concept you have not heard before, or if you are a policy geek who gets excited over checklists, then this episode is for you!  Host D ..read more