Ourvets St Albans

19/12/2024

11/12/2024

George enjoying some time in the sun after his surgery with us on Friday 🌞🌞

26/11/2024

Unfortunately we have had a deceased tabby female cat handed into us from the public. Location Mayfield ave. No microchip

19/11/2024

This sweet young lady was a stray and has now been taken in by a good family home after receiving her vaccinations and health checks. We love a happy ending 🥳😍😍

11/10/2024

Today’s focus was planned to be on inpatient care and patient advocacy, but we would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the skills they have as inpatient carers and reinforce how much nurses do for the veterinary team, and address some common misconceptions that had traditionally surrounded the veterinary nursing profession.

Some may think that vet nurses spend a lot of time patting and cuddling cute pets, however this is rarely the case! In reality, most healthy puppies and kittens are seen by the vets for their health checks and first vaccinations, not the nursing team. Except for the routine surgical patients, it is the sick and injured patients that the nurses spend most of their time with behind the scenes. This allows them to really get to know their patients on a deeper level and empowers them to act as advocates for your pets. Vet nurses are often the first to detect subtle signs indicating a change in condition, discomfort, or pain.

Veterinary nurses are NOT:

🦄Glorified cleaners
🦄Kennel hands
🦄Vet assistants

Veterinary nurses perform the roles of:

🦄Nurses
🦄Phlebotomists
🦄Imaging technicians
🦄Surgical assistants
🦄Quality control heroes
🦄Reception and customer service agents
🦄Counselors and support persons
🦄Dental hygienists
🦄Anaesthetists
🦄Puppy Preschool teachers
🦄Patient advocates
🦄Pharmacy dispensers

To end off the week, enjoy a fun video taken in our clinic with our team about what we love about Vet Nurses

NZVNA

10/10/2024

Its day 4 of our nurse appreciation week and today we are acknowledging the knowledge a veterinary nurse has and how they can use it to benefit their clients, patients and the wider community.

Triage advice is something that nurses provide daily, in fact in almost every phone call for advice or bookings, the nurses will be asking the appropriate questions to make sure pets are booked to be seen in an appropriate time frame for the symptoms at hand (massive shout out to our reception team are also champions at this). Nurses can provide life saving first aid advice on the phone and talk you through CPR, wound trauma and choking episodes while you are on your way to the clinic. Nurses are often the first point of triage for emergent patients that present to the clinic and can start to provide emergency care and CPR while waiting on a vet.

Nurses can also provide advice on de-sexing queries, certain medical conditions, exercise and can help work through behavioral concerns you may have with your pets.

09/10/2024

😸🤓Today's focus is Nurse Consultations 🤓😸

Nurses are unable to diagnose medical conditions and prescribe medications, but there are still many reasons to book in nurse consultation! Not only does this free up the vets schedule, enabling clinics to accommodate short notice booking requests, but it also reduces the price for you as the client! 🥳🥳

Nurse consults include:

🩺Triage advice if you are unsure if your pet needs medical attention
🩺Vaccinations (excluding first vet visits and kittens/puppies)
🩺Injection consults for products such as Beransa, Solensia and Cytopoint
🩺Subcutaneous fluid administration
🩺Post operative checks
🩺Weight management and nutritional advice
🩺Nail trims
🩺Anal Glands
🩺Blood draws
🩺Dental checks
🩺Flea and worm application
🩺Bandage changes
🩺Phovia Laser

08/10/2024

Today’s focus is Diagnostics

Did you know that vet nurses perform x-rays? Its often the nurses that position patients and take x-rays for the veterinarian to interpret. They can even take dental x-rays! And its not just x-rays, nurses are skilled experts when it comes to taking blood samples from patients. To top it all off they are the often ones operating the lab equipment, running blood and urine samples, and reporting results back to the veterinarian.

Under the vet's instruction nurses will place intravenous lines, setting up and administering fluid therapy, and monitoring the patient's response. They will always make their patients comfort a priority, ensuring they have comfortable and supportive bandaging, and working in some very interesting positions (often on the floor) just to ensure you pet feels safe and secure while in their care.