Anesthesia for Compromised Patients

By: Marcia Fletcher

Description: From time to time, we are faced with anaesthetising a very old, young, sick, or emergency patient for surgery, diagnostic procedures or stabilisation. While fit and healthy patients may have significant reserves in organ function and are usually able to handle the stress of general anaesthesia and surgery, compromised patients have markedly less reserves and an impaired ability to cope with these stresses. This webinar will discuss preparation and stabilisation methods for compromised patients in the pre-operative period, as well as what to monitor perioperatively and during recovery. To put all our new knowledge and though processes together a compromised patient case example is used to finish the webinar.

By the end of the session, attendees will be able to:

1. To recognize and become familiar with the many faces of the term “”compromised””.
2. To become confident with ways to stabilize and reduce the risk associated with compromised patient anesthesia.
3. To be able to make a patient specific list of “”anticipated problems and considerations”” for each compromised patient.

Speaker Info: Marcia is a registered veterinary nurse specialist and an international speaker. Having 20 years’ experience in veterinary anaesthesia, she started her career working for the Massey University Veterinary Teaching Hospital in New Zealand and was the senior anaesthesia nurse there for over 16 years. In 2011 she became New Zealand’s first Veterinary Technician Specialist in Anaesthesia and Analgesia. She has been awarded New Zealand’s “Vet Nurse of the Year”, and several teaching awards including “Teacher of the Year”. Marcia is also a RECOVER certified instructor of both basic and advanced CPR. In 2020 Marcia left the university teaching life and created “”The Pink Stethoscope””, her platform to elevate veterinary anaesthesia within the entire veterinary community. Through The Pink Stethoscope she independently provides postgraduate veterinary anaesthesia education, training, webinars and consultations both nationally and internationally. Marcia loves all aspects of veterinary anaesthesia teaching. Her passion has always been instilling anaesthesia knowledge to the greater veterinary profession – to make a somewhat challenging subject less stressful, and ultimately to empower veterinary professionals to continue their anaesthesia learning journey. Away from work Marcia is a busy kiwi mum, enjoying her home life with her husband, daughter, son, and very special “fur-daughter” Minnie the tuxedo cat.