A Day in the Life of a Veterinary Nurse

My name is Maggie Bodea and I'm a veterinary nurse at Michigan State University. So the cool part about being a veterinary nurse is we do it all. So we might be the ones that intake that patient for the first time, do a physical exam on them, take their vitals. We are the ones that are really the hands-on with those patients, drawing blood, assisting in procedures, taking x-rays. So we really have a range of duties and it's different every day. This is Hilo. We are going to induce him under general anesthesia so that we can take care of his wounds. So we'll just slowly titrate these drugs in until he starts to become unconscious. As soon as he's fully unconscious and able to tolerate a tube going down his trachea, this will be placed so that we can continue to deliver our inhalant anesthetic. And gently kind of place it into his airway. I'm going to hook him up to some oxygen. Turn our anesthetic on. So we're going to go into this wound room. One of our jobs as a veterinary nurse is to be an anesthetist. And so while this patient is undergoing their surgical procedure, we're going to be having eyes on them all the time. So we're going to be using our monitor here to monitor things like ECG, how well they're oxygenating, how well they're ventilating, what their temperature is, their blood pressure. All of those things I'm just constantly monitoring to make sure this patient has the safest anesthetic event possible. So what's on him now is called a vac. And what it does is it manually pulls out and draws out any fluid that's kind of infected fluid. And then hopefully we can get rid of his infection. So today we're taking a look. We're seeing if the vac has done its job. So it's a little bit of a let's see how it looks and make a decision from there. But Hilo's pretty lucky that he's in good hands here. And hopefully we'll get him on the road to recovery soon. Sometimes veterinary nurses can actually assist in the procedure, which means they scrub into surgery alongside the surgeon and can assist with anything that they need. So we just sterilely scrubbed our hands. And so we're going to sterilely don our surgical gowns and then our gloves before we go into the OR. So this dog has a torn ligament that keeps its knee together, kind of like our ACL. And so now that the ligament isn't intact anymore, we have to change the shape of their bones so they bear weight differently. So we take a tibia bone and we make a cut in it with the saw. We rotate that bone. We put a plate on it to keep it in place. And then that dog does not need that ligament anymore. And they can go on doing normal exercise, normal everyday life. These are the plates that we'll use on the bone. Each one of these will have a screw in them. We know every step that the surgeon is going to take for this surgery so that we can anticipate their next needs. We could be handing them the instruments that they need. When they ask for something, we know exactly where it is on the table and what they're going to need. It helps the surgery go much faster, smoother, and cuts down on the anesthesia time for that patient. Some people get into veterinary medicine thinking that, you know, they just love animals. But there's always a person attached to that animal. We're going to go into an exam room. And I'm about to discharge this patient back to their owner. Hello! How are you doing? Here's your boy. He did so good. He was a favorite. Thank you so much. This just outlines the surgery that he had. So he had a neuter today. He did awesome under anesthesia. No complications at all. We're the ones educating that client. We're the ones who are consoling them if they're stressed. We're the ones that are walking through the procedure with them. We really are the ones that get to know them really well. And we're kind of their trusted partner and advocate with their pet. Working with cats is very different than working with dogs. You really have to understand their behavior. This is Tobias. He is getting a dental cleaning today. Hi buddy! So we are going to go take him to do his physical exam. You can see he's pretty happy to be here. It's pretty important to meet your patients before you really work with them. Just kind of get a sense for if they have any fear, anxiety, stress. Doesn't look like he has any of those. Tobias doesn't seem to mind. So we like to transport our cats in something around the hospital so that they feel a little more secure and safe. We'll carry him to the exam room. So Tobias is a pretty easygoing cat. But not all cats are this happy to be in a hospital. Sometimes they're not feeling well and they can become stressed. And so we really read their body language. We learn what types of behavior they're exhibiting in order to really make them as comfortable as possible. You want to come out? So we like to let our cats kind of explore the room, get a sense for smells and the sights of the room just so they're a little more comfortable. Most cats are a little bit more stressed than Tobias in the hospital and they might even be kind of hiding in a corner, really might not want to come out. And so just getting them used to our voice and giving them a few minutes to acclimate can make a big difference. Michigan State does both small animal and large animal. So we have one side of the hospital that's just equipped for all horses, cows, you name it. The best part about veterinary medicine and the biggest difference between vet med and human med is that we have to work on all different types of species. So we really have to understand the differences in medicine, how to handle, all those things that go into working with horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pig, llama. And so this here is Annabelle. Horses are probably my favorite to work with. But we really need to understand them, understand the way that they communicate with us and that's a big part of our job. Horses are flight animals and so we just need to make sure we're being very cautious with how we walk them through. Communicating with the surgeon is really important to make sure that everybody's on the same page with what's going to happen, what might we anticipate happening. And so Dr. Strapoda and I were just kind of going over the plan. So the owner said that she was really lame on her left front. I think they said on and off lame, honestly, for about a year. But it's just gotten progressively worse in the last month. Yes, definitely when she's exercising. Lameness means the patient has some type of injury on their limb and that usually means that their gait is off and so something about their movement is not right. Once we get a weight on Annabelle and we get her over to surgery prep, we will brush her, make sure she's as clean as possible before going into a sterile surgical field. So prior to surgery, I'm going to put an EKG on her if she tolerates it. That way we can get a baseline of what her heart rate and rhythm is doing before we anesthetize her. So there are clips that I'll put on her. I'll go nice and slow. Good girl. Annabelle's prepped now. We'll move her into an induction stall where we'll give her the anesthetic. We'll move into surgery and hopefully we can find the cause of her lameness. We'll take a scope into her joint and look around and kind of see what's going on. We do have some challenges when it comes to food animals, but it is a little bit different of a approach when it's an animal who's been handled a lot and an animal who's really used to people. So this pig here we have for what we call a spa day. And so we just need some sedation to get a few things done. So hoof trimming, teeth trimming, maybe some vaccines, just things that pigs don't typically tolerate unless they have a little sedation on board. So this is Violet here and we've just given her a nice little cocktail of drugs and she's feeling really good. So I'm going to put some monitoring devices on her and we'll watch her closely as we get this done. So this is a blood pressure cuff, just like you would get at the doctor's office. We'll take a blood pressure on her. So Violet is a pot-bellied pig. She is a pet in the home. So it's a little bit different than kind of your production food animal pigs that live in big groups outside. This pig is used to people, is really a member of the family. And so there is a little bit of a different approach to a pet pig versus a food animal pig. So we're keeping a close eye on her in recovery. We are monitoring currently her oxygenation. So just until she comes out of her sedation, we want to make sure she's oxygenating okay and breathing all right for us. So we'll keep a close eye on her until she's awake. Every member of the veterinary team is vital for the process to go smoothly and for patients to get what they need. From receptionists to our veterinary assistants, to the veterinary nurse and the veterinarian, we all really work together and have a different role. But together we provide the best care for our patients. Why this field is so special is that we are really saving lives every day. And sometimes we think about saving lives in a really critical, dire situation, but even vaccines, everyday wellness, that is saving lives. And so we make an impact every single day. I think that it's such a special thing. And for me to feel like I have a part in that and really connecting and being a patient advocate when they really can't speak for themselves is something that's really important to me. And that's why I do it. Veterinary nursing is so rewarding. We get to experience the human-animal bond firsthand and I can't imagine doing anything else.