Idea Exchange: In exotics, secure your stethoscope for hands-free monitoring
A way to make sure your stethoscope stays out of the way during anesthetic monitoring.
We perform a lot of surgery on rabbits and pocket pets at our hospital. In the past, I found that my stethoscope would often get in the way when I monitored these patients during surgery. I would either shift the drape at the wrong moment, or, worse yet, my hand would enter the sterile field while I monitored the heart rate of a rat, for example.
To solve this problem, I now secure my stethoscope to the patient with Vetwrap (3M). The bell of my stethoscope stays in place without my having to move the drape. I simply wrap the Vetwrap securely around the patient (but not tight enough to cause any restriction or compression) after it is positioned on the table, making sure to leave a tab on the end of the wrap so I can easily remove it.
Erin Crisp, RVT
Cincinnati, Ohio
