Reviews for North Wales Regional Meetings
On a very warm evening at 7.30pm on the 7th of July a total of 37 nurses gathered in Abergele for my first meeting as BVNA North Wales RCO. I have taken over as RCO from Bethan Houseman who works for Novartis and kindly sponsored the meeting along with Vets Now.
Our speaker was Katherine Howie VN VTS (ECC) and she gave us a talk on ‘The Nurses Role in Pain Management-Pain Recognition and Management’. Katherine works as Senior Nurse for Vets Now in Farnham and has a great amount of knowledge in her field.
Everyday in our profession an animal appears in the waiting room in some form of pain, whether it is traumatic from an R.T.A. or an animal suffering with osteoarthritis, dental or abdominal pain.
After filling up on a tasty buffet Katherine started her talk by giving us a re-cap on the pain pathway and the importance of stopping pain before it occurs. Katherine then explained the changes in physical parameters that might indicate pain; she involved the group by asking for things that we see that can give us an indication of pain. She then went on to tell us the consequences of unmanaged pain which was very interesting. After a coffee break we moved on to Analgesics and their individual roles in ECC. Some nurses were unfamiliar with the drugs mentioned and the advantages of using a constant rate infusion. I am sure that Katherine has helped take this information back to several practices for discussion. The talk was well presented and informative and it was great to have interaction between the speaker and those attending. I think it gave us all inspiration as it was presented by an experienced Veterinary Nurse.
It was great to have so many nurses attend this meeting and I have several more CPD evenings in the pipeline for North Wales! The next talk is on ‘Blood Transfusions and Fluid Therapy’. Unfortunately we don’t get much CPD in our area so it is important that the local nurses can improve their CPD file and take information back to use in their practice.
Tara Lynch RVN MBVNA
North Wales BVNA Regional Co-ordinator