Anaesthesia, Analgesia and Critical Care for Rabbits

Week 1 - Making Rabbit Anaesthesia Safer

• Pre-op advice for clients
• ASA grading – what increases the risk?
• Monitoring under general anaesthesia
• Post-operative care

Learning outcomes:

• Recap rabbit anaesthesia and how you can help build up your confidence, including pre op, intra op and post op care
• Identify signs to be monitoring under anaesthesia – including CO2, SPO2, reflexes, HR, RR and BP readings
• Using the ASA grading system, look at why rabbits may be at a higher risk, compared with dogs and cats when placed under GA
• Understand the options for intubation and maintaining an airway

Week 2 - Analgesia

• The signs of pain
• Causes of pain
• Knock on effects of uncontrolled pain
• Analgesia options

Learning outcomes:

• Identify the signs that rabbits show when in pain - these can be easily missed!
• Learn how to use with the 'Rabbit Grimace Scale' in conjunction with clinical signs
• Appreciate the secondary problems that pain can lead to, when it is not managed correctly
• Know what analgesia options can be used in rabbits

Week 3 - Preparing for an Emergency

• Preparation at the practice
• Triaging rabbits
• Obtaining a capsule history
• Assessment
• Managing owner expectations

Learning outcomes:

Describe the physiolo

• When the phone rings it is important to be prepared for the emergency rabbit case. Know what to do and what equipment to set up to be ready
• Understand how to triage rabbits and when continuing to do so may be detrimental
• Obtain a quick and useful history from the owner to enable treatment to commence
• Conduct a full assessment of the rabbit – from head to toe
• Communicate with clients, managing their expectations and keeping them informed

Week 4 - Critical Care:  Keeping them Alive!

• What is and what isn’t an emergency
• What to do when faced with a rabbit emergency
• Stabilisation and oxygen therapy

Learning outcomes:

• Rabbit emergencies are not always obvious, and knowing what is and what isn’t an emergency is important
• Understand the health conditions which are emergencies in rabbits, including gastrointestinal stasis/blockages, flystrike, liver lobe torsion and respiratory distress
• Keeping stress to a minimum is important – learn how to achieve this
• Identify the signs of improvement and deterioration

The course will be fully tutored by Claire Speight, and will consist of 10 hours of CPD given in various formats, including tutorials, tasks, case studies, forum discussions and quizzes.

For some further information about our Online Tutored CPD courses - please open the guide below:

ONLINE TUTORED CPD COURSES - PDF GUIDE