From Professor Dutton:
VETS 238
Emergency and Critical Care Paper
100 points
Overview: This assignment is designed to give you more exposure to common emergency and critical care nursing techniques utilized in veterinary medicine. The lecture class only has a finite amount of time to cover the complex, numerous and interesting procedures and nursing care used in this field. In addition, this assignment will introduce you to finding scientific articles and peer-reviewed information to enhance your career.
Student Learning Outcomes:
* Students will be able to research a topic not covered in class, to practice learning more on their own.
* Students will become familiar with searching PubMed, finding full text, and using ILL.
* Students will learn how to do effective searching on a topic, including basic facts about a topic and refocusing their search to find further details.
* Students will be able to present discharge instructions for a client including relevant information on patient home care.
The assignment: Pick an emergency or critical care condition or technique that is used in veterinary medicine. Examples include: chest tube placement, urinary catheterization, central line placement, and management of a variety of conditions (like HBC, congestive heart failure, the blocked cat, diabetes or hypoadrenocorticism).
Write a 6 page paper about management of this condition or technique you are interested in. Highlight the major things to watch for, how often monitoring should be done or any special care needed. You will also need to include, discharge instructions for the condition you selected. Discharge instructions should include all the relevant home care an owner will need to monitor and medicate their pet. Write these as you would communicate the disease and care to a lay person.
You are not veterinary students, you do not need to provide the pathophysiology of a disease or injury. But YOU DO need to discuss your paper topic from the point of view of a veterinary nurse and provide concrete reasoning as to why treatments and medications are important.
A detailed description of treatments/procedures is not necessary.
Sources: Your primary source can be any of the textbooks for this class. Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care for Veterinary Technicians is a good place to start. Also, you should find at least 1 other book and 2 peer-reviewed source for a total of at least 4 sources. No online sources will be accepted (it is, however, acceptable to access a print source online).
Peer-reviewed sources can be scientific papers (although they can be tough to get through), or other periodicals. Clinicians Brief, Todays Veterinary Practice and Todays Veterinary Nurse are great peer-reviewed periodicals that are FREE to subscribe to and have awesome articles regarding many of the topics mentioned above. They are also available online!
Example: A common critical care case might be chronic renal failure in a cat. I would research critical care of renal failure in the cat to find out what nursing techniques and monitoring would be important. Does a urinary catheter need placed? Why? Intravenous catheter? Why? Does blood work need monitored? And if so how often? Why? What other nursing care might be important for a CRF cat? Is diet important? How so? Why are fluids used? Can you overhydrate a CRF cat? What drugs should be avoided in this type of patient?
Format:
* 6 pages
* Double spaced
* 12 point font (Times New Roman or similar)
* 1 inch margins
* APA style citations
