A global specialist in the field of emergency animal medicine has briefed veterinary staff from Cheshire, Staffordshire and the Wirral on the latest life-saving techniques for dogs and cats.
Dr Bill Saxon, who is a world-class authority on acute medicine for small animals and once ran his own animal intensive care unit, gave a lecture on the most up to date resuscitation procedures to 52 veterinary surgeons and nurses from the Willows Veterinary Group at its Ashbrook Equine Centre in Allostock, near Knutsford.
The following day Dr Saxon was given a guided tour of the group’s state of the art veterinary hospital, Willows Veterinary Hospital, in Hartford, near Northwich, meeting members of the team who provide 24-hour care for sick animals.
Dr Saxon said: “This was my first professional visit to the UK and I was delighted to accept the invitation to speak to the vets and nurses.
“In my lecture I reviewed the current recommendations for performing cardiac pulmonary resuscitation - or CPR – on cats and dogs.
“Performing CPR on these animals is nothing new but there are new guidelines on how to do it and that’s what I was sharing in my talk.
“Basically, the procedure is performed on cats and dogs in precisely the same way as it is on humans with only a few slight modifications.
“You have to make sure they have a way to breath, which might mean passing in a tube to help them do this.
“The actual resuscitation is done in exactly the same way as it is on humans, using the palm of the hand and fingers to gently compress the chest.
“In my lecture I then followed up this information by working through how to take care of a dog hit by a car.
“Of course, the vets and nurses in the audience already know how to perform CPR but, hopefully, the new information I shared with them will help them to manage their patients in an even better way.”
Small Animal Divisional Partner at Willows Veterinary Group, Dr Tom McGowan, who is head vet at the Acorn Veterinary Surgery in West Kirby on the Wirral, sat in on the lecture.
A fellow countryman of Dr Saxon who is originally from Arkansas in the US, he said: “This was an extremely important visit for us as Dr Saxon is the leader in his field of critical care for small animals.
“At our practices when we see critical care cases it is usually at night and animals are in a bad state and our vets have to make difficult decisions under pressure.
“That’s why the information he gave us about the latest CPR techniques are going to be very useful.
“He stressed that veterinary medicine really does change and if you don’t keep up with the clinical training you will pretty soon find yourself behind the times.
“Dr Saxon is a good speaker and covered basic and advanced resuscitation techniques.
“It was a fantastic opportunity for the WVG veterinary teams to refresh and build on their skills.”
He added: “Having someone of Dr Saxon’s eminence to talk to us has been fantastic and we were honoured to have him visit us.
“We’re also grateful to IDEXX for arranging the visit to help with our continuing education programme which is very much part of the ethos at Willows Veterinary Group.”
