View our comprehensive Patient Preparation Guidelines.
We kindly ask that any patient requiring our services be dropped off at your clinic early in the morning on the day of the procedure.
We will provide procedure consent forms for you to download and print and have the owner sign on admission.
We also have a form, which you can direct pet owners to, that has information on what to expect from their end.
We will call your clinic on approach, providing 15-30 minutes notice to enable adequate patient preparation to begin. We kindly ask that sedation is administered and hair is clipped prior to our arrival to facilitate sufficient examination time. For procedures requiring general anaesthesia (endoscopy, bone marrow aspirates, joint or spinal taps, trucut biopsies), we kindly ask that the patient is anaesthetised prior to our arrival.
Should you have any further queries regarding patient preparation, please get in touch.
Fasting
Fasting is required for all procedures. This will enable safe sedation or anaesthesia with reduced risk of aspiration pneumonia.
Mature dogs and cats
Withhold food for 12 hours and water for 6 hours.
6hrs
No water
12hrs
No food
Puppies and kittens less than 6 months
Withhold food for 6 hours and water for 4 hours.
4hrs
No water
6hrs
No food
Diabetic patients
Fasting is still required, and a half insulin dose is recommended.
6hrs
No water
12hrs
No food
1/2 dose
insulin
Pregnant bitches and queens
For all pregnancy ultrasounds, fasting is not required.
Water as normal
Food as normal
Sedation
Recommended for most ultrasound procedures except echocardiograms. Sedation may interfere with accurate echocardiographic measurements and is only necessary when there is poor patient compliance. Sedation is essential to the patient permit safe and pain free aspiration. Light to moderate sedation is adequate in most cases, except for highly anxious, fractious or aggressive animals. For these cases, heavy sedation or general anaesthesia may be necessary.
Please see sedation guide. We kindly ask that sedation be performed prior to our arrival into your clinic to facilitate maximum time being devoted to the ultrasound examination.
Bladder
A full urinary bladder permits the most accurate assessment of the bladder wall and its contents and also safe sampling of urine if required. Please aim for patients to have a full bladder prior to abdominal ultrasounds.
Shaving
Abdominal ultrasound
The hair should be shaved from the xiphoid process to the caudal abdomen (pelvis/pubis), up to the hypaxial muscles/lateral spinal processes on each side and should include the last 3-4 ribs.
Right Lateral
Left Lateral
Echocardiogram (heart ultrasound)
A window on both the left and right side should be shaved. This window is generally just behind the point of the elbow in a relaxed standing position. The window should extend from cranial to caudal: 4th-8th rib. Dorsally it should extend up to the CCJ and ventrally towards the sternum. In cats it is recommended to join the clips ventrally in the midline from both sides to create one large rectangular window.
As a guide, the precordial thrill should be palpable in the centre of the shaved window.
Left Lateral
Left Lateral
Right Lateral
Coagulation testing
An automated and manual platelet count along with assessment of secondary haemostasis (ACT or PT and aPTT) must be done and normal prior to performing any fine needle aspiration on animals with cholestatic liver disease or hepatic lipidosis or prior to a any Tru-cut biopsy.
Fasting
For upper GI endoscopy/gastroscopy, it is vitally important to withhold food for 12 hours to enable adequate visualisation of the entire gastric mucosa and for passage of the endoscope through the pylorus into the duodenum.
For lower GI endoscopy/colonoscopy, apart from the fasting requirements for general anaesthesia, no additional patient preparation is necessary. Under anaesthesia, a gentle warm water enema will be performed prior to the endoscopy to permit adequate visualization of the colonic mucosa.
Coagulation testing
An automated and manual platelet count along with assessment of secondary haemostasis (ACT or PT and aPTT) must be done and normal prior to performing rhinoscopy and nasal biopsies.
Other
For any specific patient preparation query you may have in relation to other procedures, please call us 03 9005 0323 or email us [email protected]/insightmvd.
Sedation Guide
Please use this as a guide only.
Ultimately the patient is under your Veterinary care and your Veterinarians need to be comfortable administering this. Feel free to utilise our guide or perform sedation utilising medications your Veterinarians are most comfortable with.
NB When substituting medetomidine for dexmedetomidine, reduce the dose by 50%
DOGS
Heavy Sedation
- Butorphanol 0.1mg/kg
- Medetomidine 5 micrograms/kg
Mild Sedation
- Butorphanol 0.1mg/kg
- Midazolam 0.2mg/kg
CATS
Heavy Sedation
- Butorphanol 0.2-0.4mg/kg + Medetomidine 10 micrograms/kg
- Alfaxan 2.5mg/kg IM
Mild Sedation
- Butorphanol 0.3mg/kg
- Midazolam 0.2mg/kg
