An Animal Hospital Serving Maryland

Animal Surgery is sometimes unavoidable, though it's an essential part of the veterinary services your vet provides. If your pet must undergo surgery, whether for a routine spay or neutering, or more complicated veterinary surgery procedure, it could be quite traumatic for the pet as well as the owner. Veterinary surgeons usually cannot operate on animals, large or small, without them being under anesthesia. Anesthesia, as in human surgery, has inherent dangers and risks.

Take the area of veterinary dentistry for example. Dental radiology and teeth cleaning for dogs and cats is next to impossible without this. Humans just sit still when told to and pray that the drilling stops soon. Try saying that to a cat. Or dog. Pet surgery just doesn't work very well when the animal is awake and scared out of its wits. Yes, the sound of that high-speed drill scares them too.

Small Animal Surgery Steps Most Hospitals Follow

A pre-surgery examination and testing period is used to ascertain the actual physical condition of the prospective patient. More than likely, blood tests will also be conducted to check for hidden conditions.

At the time of surgery an anesthesia will be administered. It's vital that the animal is out to prevent injury to itself or the staff members. The patient should be monitored continuously while under anesthesia. The checking of vital signs like heart and respiratory rates, temperature, blood pressure and oxygen saturation level is routine.

Just so that your pet doesn't experience any undue discomfort, they will administer pain medication before, during, and after surgery.

Surgical Consultation and Specialist Services

Sometimes the local vets come across cases that are beyond their reach and these cases are often referred to surgical specialists, such as veterinary orthopedic surgeons. Just be prepared for those occasions.

After the surgery comes the Post-Operative Consultation. This should be expected, just as you would with human surgery. How did it go? How are they doing? What now? We're going to be in touch with your regular doctor, that sort of thing.

Types of Animal Surgery

There are five core types of surgery an animal may undergo in the typical veterinary practice. We list them now along with a brief description of each type. Bear in mind, these are not technical descriptions since the reality is, pet owners are not usually looking for medical details and definitions. All they want is that their pets can be made healthy again.

• Major Surgery: Any procedure where the animal is not expected to return to "normal" after a reasonable post-operative recovery period
• Minor surgery: Any invasive operative procedure in which only skin, mucous membrane and / or connective tissue is resected
• Non-survival surgery: These procedures are those conducted on animals which are not allowed to regain consciousness following the anesthesia and surgical procedure (i.e. are euthanized)
• Survival surgery: Any animal surgery from which the patient recovers consciousness. Aseptic technique must be used for all survival surgical procedures in all species. All survival surgical procedures on non-rodent mammalian species must be conducted in surgical facilities designed for that purpose and approved by the IACUC
• Multiple Survival Surgery: Any protocol that anesthetizes an animal to perform an incision, then recovers the animals, and at a later date re-anesthetizes the animal and recovers the animal.

It should have been clear from the beginning that this article can only skims the surface of all that surgery involves. Make a note that, depending upon the actual facility and the type of pet, pet surgery procedures may differ. A 24 hour vet will have to abide by different rules and use different veterinary supplies than a doctor in the middle of a veterinary emergency. Animal surgery is proving to be very much as complicated as surgery on humans. And all pet lovers around the world are grateful for that.