Dead Patients Don’t Need Dentals: Mastering CPR in Veterinary Dentistry

Dentistry requires general anaesthesia, and although the risks for this are much lower, and continue to improve with advanced monitoring and training, the risk is never zero.
Patients presenting to dentistry commonly fall into the geriatric period of their life span, which although not a risk in itself, does make them slightly more pre disposed to morbities, which can increase their risk of fatality under general anaesthesia.
Clients are often reluctant to allow dentistry or oral surgery on their pets who are geriatric or have co existing disease, because of the perceived increased risk factors.
Whilst we can offer reassurance, and keep up to date with training of anaesthesia management and safety, we unfortunately cannot reduce the risk of death to zero.
What we can do, is be as well trained, diligent and prepared as possible, and this should include being current, up to date, and well trained, in the most up to date Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) guidelines.
This needs to be more than just having a chart in the room or on your anaesthetic form of what to do, this is such an important element of Veterinary Care, and we all need to be up to date, and prepared, should we find ourselves in a position of a patient requiring CPR whilst under our care for any dental or oral surgery.
In October 2024 the Recover guidelines were updated, using evidence based studies and information, to improve the outcome of animals who experience Cardio Pulmonary Arrest- whether that be from a conscious state, or under general anaesthesia.
This session will talk you through patients that may be a higher risk, how to discuss this with the owners, how to help mitigate these risks, but predominantly, what to do if your patient does suffer CPA whilst undergoing oral/dental surgery.
The session will cover Basic Life Support, Advanced Life Support, expectations, how to utilise the team, compressions for different breeds of dogs and felines, how to ventilate these patients, what monitoring should be used and how, and the current drug protocols thought to be most effective given the recent studies.