New ACA's

RE: New ACA's

janine redman — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 22:29:08 GMT

I have a veterinary surgeon who often assists as an anaesthetist, receptionist or nurse . She has her own vds cover as a veterinary surgeon

RE: New ACA's

Bob Russell — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:43:35 GMT

We have two veterinary care assistants (VCA's). It qualifies for City & Guilds and their certificates are proudly displayed.

One has done a second course that covers anaesthesia and monitoring. I can assure everyone they are extremely competent! Training and expected level of knowledge is thorough but it does require input from experienced staff!

The courses were run by the College of Animal Welfare but it was a few years ago now. Even our receptionists have done their equivalent course for receptionists. It provides a lot of 'why we do things'.

We were not set up to train nurses as a practice and it was far less silly than becoming a training practice.

Well worth considering (we do have two RVN's as well).

RE: New ACA's

Clive Ansell — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 21:09:10 GMT

[quote userid="3169" url="~/001/nonclinical/veterinary-practice-management/f/training-employment/30188/new-aca-s/235769#235769"]I've known some very good ACA's that were better than some RVN's, but that's a brave statement.....[/quote]

Very true.

I've worked with some brilliant untrained nurses, and with some dreadful vn's/rvn's

[quote userid="8858" url="~/001/nonclinical/veterinary-practice-management/f/training-employment/30188/new-aca-s/235770#235770"]but I think it would be best if you don't allow them to monitor anaesthetics unless they enrolled as student nurses[/quote]

Where I am at the moment, we have no trained nurses, there seems to be a recruitment crisis. The untrained ones are fully capable and competent.

RE: New ACA's

Jill Butterworth — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 19:40:05 GMT

I'm sure it still happens, but I think it would be best if you don't allow them to monitor anaesthetics unless they are enrolled as student nurses. These days you might be on a sticky wicket if there was an adverse anaesthetic event and a complaint. In other, more obvious anomalies, if vets work as nurses, they are not covered by their VDS policy, which I find very odd.

RE: New ACA's

Michael Woodhouse — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 19:26:49 GMT

My advice would be to sit the clinical team down and set boundaries. If this is new then even consider an evening and take them to the pub etc.

Decide if you are going to train to monitor anaesthetics. Decide if they will give s/c and oral meds. Decide if they are running bloods, pulling IV's etc

The people you are most likely to annoy are the nurses. It will depend on your views on what you let them do.

I've known some very good ACA's that were better than some RVN's, but that's a brave statement.....