It is mid-July and I have my first (sort of) small animal rotation at school. Although I did manage to make it to the large animal ward 4 times during this rotation, it is predominantly more of a small animal rotation because these are more procedures that require anesthesia (surgery, MRI, CT, small animal endoscopies, etc.) taking place.

Anesthesia always makes me anxious because I am perpetually worried that an animal will get too light or too deep while I am monitoring him. My first experience with anesthesia was during Junior Surgery (our spay and neuter course at school), and I swear I had someone come over to my group every 5 minutes to check on me and make sure that my patient was in an appropriate depth of anesthesia. The animal always was, but I was worried that something might go wrong, which I guess isn’t a bad concern to have while performing such an important task.

I am pleased to say that during my two-week rotation on anesthesia, I became so much more comfortable with anesthesia. I am sure that it helped that all of the techs and everyone that was there always maintained a calm and patient demeanor, because this made me feel calm and I felt more comfortable asking questions and expressing any concerns that I may have had.

The highlight of my entire rotation was during my first week on the rotation when I was monitoring for a small animal surgery – a caudectomy (tail amputation) on a cat and she began to get a little light (her heart rate elevated and her blood pressures increased) because she was getting slightly painful. The tech that was on my case had left the room for a short moment and after I watched the heart rate and blood pressures continue to increase for about a minute or so, I decided that I had to intervene somehow. I was deciding if I wanted to increase the inhalant anesthetic or administer some more induction agent (the agent that we used to actually induce the patient and put her into the sleepy state of anesthesia). I had just decided to give more induction agent when the tech came in, looked at the monitor for the patient, and decided to give more induction agent. Even though I didn’t actually decide how much to give or give it myself, I was so happy that I realized that something had to be done and that adding more induction agent was a good option.

This was a really good moment for me because I realized how far I’ve come since the beginning of school, and even since Junior Surgery earlier this year, where just the thought of performing anesthesia got me nervous. I’m excited for the rest of the clinical year and am looking forward to more moments like these – moments where I am shown just how far I have come in my education and moments where I feel like things are clicking for me.