General Information

Is this a species you are familiar with? Are there any unique anatomical or physiological considerations? Do you have the facilities and staff to restrain, transport etc., the patient? What is the procedure to be performed? What is the anticipated time the patient will need to be recumbent?

Anesthetic Drugs and Delivery

What drugs have been used in these species? What were the circumstances? Is there safety and efficacy information available for the drugs you might use? What route of administration will you utilize? Will you have an accurate weight for the animal? Do you have the appropriate delivery equipment and personnel? Are there reversal agents for the selected drugs?

Monitoring Equipment

What is available to you? Where will you place the equipment on the patient? Will you need to modify or purchase any equipment?

Patient Support

Do you have the ability to appropriately position the patient and provide padding so as to prevent any myopathy or neuropathy? Do you anticipate any complications (e.g., hypoventilation, hemorrhage)? If so, are you prepared to deal with them should they arise? For a routine case do you plan to administer fluids? How and how much? What analgesics if any will you use?

Example 1

Consider that you are an equine veterinarian with surgical expertise in diseases of the foot and you have been asked to help with anesthesia and distal limb surgery on a 4000 lb elephant with osteomyelitis of the digit.

Example 2

Consider that you are a small animal practitioner with some expertise in anesthetic management of small exotic patients. You have been called upon to help anesthetize some patients at the zoological society in your city. The first case you are asked to anesthetize is a 200 lb lioness. If all goes well, they would like to then do a vasectomy on a male orangutan.

We will go through these and / or similar case examples to help answer some of the questions in the categories above.