Emergency Medicine: Distance Education

Develop your ability to confidently treat and monitor small animal emergency and critical care cases, ensuring optimal patient outcomes.
 

This course is designed to improve your practical skills and techniques for treating and monitoring critically ill animals. It covers a range of vital topics, including triage, fluid therapy, analgesia, acute abdomen, respiratory distress, and multisystem trauma, with a strong focus on case-based problem solving.

Stay current with the latest theoretical knowledge and apply what you've learned in a practical cadaver-based workshop. This comprehensive course is indispensable for veterinarians in all small animal practice settings.

Learning Outcomes

By successfully completing this course, you will:

• Confidently assess and treat acute trauma case and critically ill patients, including cases of acute dyspnoea, acute abdomen, diabetic ketoacidosis and intoxication.
• Better understand the principles of, and be able to perform, emergency procedures such as thoracocentesis, tracheostomy and CPR.
• Develop the ability to create appropriate fluid therapy plans to manage shock and hypovolaemia and for ongoing maintenance.
• Reach competency in ‘cage side’ clinical pathology (using blood smears to assess anaemia, analysing fluid from body cavities and analysing urine sediment).
• Perform blood transfusions safely and improve optimal wound management.
• Monitor critically ill animals.
• Improve your ability to differentiate between cardiac and pulmonary disease.

Modules

1. General set-up of a critical care area, toxicities and envenomations
   • Triage of the emergency patient
   • Interpretation of the emergency database blood tests
   • General approach to animals with a suspected intoxication
   • Envenomation: snakes, ticks, toads
2. Shock, fluid therapy and transfusion therapy
   • A practical run through of the pathophysiology of shock
   • What fluids to use and when
   • A review of the current recommendations for the use of synthetic colloids
   • Blood transfusion basics
3. Electrolytes, acid/base 
   • A discussion of serum electrolytes and their impact on fluid therapy
   • An introduction to acid base
   • Interpretation and use of acid base in clinical cases
    
4. CPR and analgesia
   • Analgesia options in emergency and critically ill
   • Current recommendations in veterinary CPR
    
5. Cardiovascular and respiratory disease
   • How do you tell them apart?
   • Emergency treatment of the dyspnoeic patient
   • Oxygen supplementation
   • An introduction to ventilation
6. Reproductive Emergencies; ocular emergencies
   • Dystocia
   • Caesarean
   • Pyometra
   • Eclampsia
   • Testicular torsion
   • Prostatic disease 
   • Ophthalmic examination 
7. Acute abdominal disease and nutrition
   • The approach to an animal with an acute abdomen
   • Pharmacology of drugs used to treat abdominal disease
   • GDV, pancreatitis
   • Abdominal effusions including uroabdomen
8. Metabolic and endocrine emergencies, urinary tract disease
   • An overview of the approach to common endocrine emergencies
   • How do I manage the DKA patient?
   • Managing acute renal failure
   • Laboratory diagnosis of renal insufficiency
    
9. Intra-cranial and extra-cranial neurological disease
   • Treating the animal with head trauma
   • Managing seizuring animals
   • Neuromuscular disease
   • Practical neuro exam
10. Multi-system trauma and wounds
    • Managing wounds to ensure we don’t interfere with healing
    • Wound dressings and their use
    • Putting it all together: how to approach the patient with multi-system trauma

Course Delivery

This online course offers a comprehensive educational package that includes:

• Comprehensive Learning Materials: Participants will access a wide range of study resources including detailed digital notes, images, journal articles and recommended reading.
• Interactive Learning Opportunities: The course features self-reflection tasks for personal assessment and an active discussion forum for peer and tutor to engage in debates and case discussions.
• Continuous Assessment: Monthly assignments are designed to assess and reinforce understanding, with personalised feedback provided by tutors to ensure comprehensive learning.
• Practical Workshop: A 2-day hands-on workshop allows participants to apply theoretical knowledge through hands-on practice, enhancing the practical learning experience.

Workshop

This Distance Education course includes an optional 2-Day Workshop in Sydney. The date of the workshop is to be advised.

What is Distance Education?

Premium, intensive online veterinary CE

All CVE Distance Education (DE) programs are mentored by leading veterinary experts who will provide individual feedback and advice on completion of each monthly module. Each module may include written content, technique videos, self-reflections, quizzes and online submission of monthly assignments.

Maximise the opportunity to expand and consolidate your learning by participating in the tutor moderated group discussion forum and attending the optional 2-day interactive workshop, with an emphasis on working through case studies and group discussion.

Who should enrol?

This course is ideal for qualified veterinarians looking to develop thier capacity to treat small animal emergency and critical care cases confidently.

Tutors

Yenny Indrawirawan & Sophia Morse