Anesthesia and pain management in Russia |
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| Authors: | CE Short |
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| Institution: | University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA |
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| Abstract: | There was only limited emphasis on anesthesia and pain management in veterinary colleges in Russia until the last ten years. There is now great interest in improvement by Russia practitioners. This effort is hampered by the lack of approved and available medications and limited instructions. At this time, the small animal practitioners have tranquilizers, alpha2 agonists local anesthetics and NSAID's for their use. Propofol is available through pharmacies and efforts are being made for veterinarians to use ketamine. Only a few practices have inhalant anesthetic units and halothane. During a recent lecture tour of Russia, general clinical principles and specific anesthetic and pain management protocols were taught. The audience, primarily young and progressive veterinarians, actively participated and showed great desire to practice quality anesthesia and pain management for their patients. Teaching young veterinarians how to manage their cases without the availability of opioids, ketamine advanced anesthetic equipment and monitors was indeed challenging. Protocols for perioperative management consisting of medetomidine with or without local anesthesia followed by carprofen for post-operative pain is an improvement. We sometimes spend so much time discussing which of many drug combinations we will use but seldom consider what we would do if we were practicing our specialty in parts of the world where we would have to modify dosages and combinations to achieve humane care with few drug choices. |
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