Surgery tips for the soon-to-be and new practitioner

Abstract

Surgical procedures conducted on livestock in field settings car­ry their own set of unique challenges related to environmental factors, variable quality of facilities available to the veterinar­ian, untrained surgical assistants in the form of owners or farm workers (or no available help at all), and access to surgical in­struments, anesthetics and emergency drugs limited to what is carried on the veterinarian’s practice vehicle or clinic. Adher­ing to the basic principles of surgery specifically applied to the veterinarian performing surgery in the field can help decrease the incidence of surgical site infections, improve patient out­comes, and avoid failure of the surgical intervention.