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208 Tasks for the Veterinary Assistant

injection move with them so you don’t accidently with- Monitoring IV Fluid
draw the needle as they jump. In which case you would
have to poke them again. Administration and IV
Large animals are given IM injections with a 1½‐inch Catheter Maintenance
needle. It is directed straight into the muscle group
chosen, the syringe is aspirated, and if no blood is seen IV fluids are administered to rehydrate patients that are
depress the plunger. If blood is seen, again ask the veter- dehydrated, to maintain fluid balance during surgery to
inarian for the correct course of action. The neck mus- prevent hypovolemia, and to treat some illnesses such as
cles are usually preferred because those are not expensive kidney failure and shock. IV fluids require a catheter
cuts of meat! IM injections can cause an abscess in which placed into a vein, usually the jugular for long‐term
case that carcass is condemned if found during slaughter treatment or the cephalic or saphenous for short‐term
and is wasted.
treatment. The veterinary assistant will be asked to assist
with the placement of IV catheters, the monitoring of
Intranasal Infusion the fluid administration, and catheter maintenance.
Fluid administration can be done in two ways. The
The third route utilized commonly for vaccinations is first method is an IV bag of fluids, hung on an IV pole,
the intranasal (IN) infusion. This is where the vaccine which is hooked to an IV drip set that is attached to an IV
is deposited directly into the nostril of the patient catheter (Figure 11.39). The IV drip set has a roller
(Figure 11.38). It is often no more than 0.5 mL of solu- clamp that is used to set the rate of fluids going into the
tion and some clinics will have you divide it and apply vein. When it is rolled open the number of drops in the
half of the dose in each nostril. You must be quick for drip chamber will increase. The rate is determined by
the second infusion because most patients do not like the veterinarian or technician based upon weight and
this and will wiggle to get away from the restrainer! percentage dehydration.
The needle is removed after drawing the vaccine up in The second method is to place the IV drip set into an
the syringe. electronic infusion pump (Figure 11.40). A fluid infu-
sion pump regulates the flow rate of fluids based upon
the patient’s requirements. Each pump will have instruc-
tions for operation and will most likely be set up by the
veterinarian or technician. The beauty of the infusion
pump is that it has an alarm that will sound if the line is
occluded. This allows personnel to move about the
room doing other tasks while the patient is lying quietly
in its kennel.

FIGURE 11.38 Intranasal (IN) administration. FIGURE 11.39 IV indwelling catheters and end cap.