An understanding of the medical conditions and diseases affecting small animals will help you to provide excellent nursing care. Sometimes it can be daunting trying to remember all the names of drugs used for certain conditions, especially when products are constantly being updated. Try keeping a notebook with subheadings for each category. This will also help you to remember the names of the medical diseases and conditions that they are used to treat.

Example: Subcategory A / Drugs used in the Treatment of Ophthalmic Conditions

If you are nursing a patient with diarrhoea, it is one thing knowing how to deal with the basic management of such a case, but it is far better to know:

• Is the cause infectious?
• If cause unknown what tests might be suitable to find out?
• What medication might the animal respond to?
• Is the animal on any concurrent medication that might be making matters worse?
• What dietary requirements are needed?

Yes, the veterinary surgeon in charge of the patient will make the decisions, but being able to ask intelligent questions will assist with the smooth handling of the case - especially bearing in mind that some veterinary surgeons are so busy, that they often leave far more to their nurses than perhaps they should! I am certainly not suggesting that nurses should know as much as the vets - but an inside knowledge is not only beneficial to your studies, but makes real-life cases very much more interesting.

Suggested reading:

• Veterinary Nursing (Butterworth Heinemann) - Edited by D R Lane & B Cooper - Chapter 17 Medical Disorders & their Nursing - by J Simpson.
• Small Animal Nutrition (Butterworth Heinemann) - by Sandie Agar.