Monday Video from Tredstep Ireland: An Aqueous Awakening from Anesthesia

Have you ever had a horse who underwent general anesthesia for surgery? If so (or even if you haven’t), then you may know that anesthesia, in particular the recovery from anesthesia, can be one of the riskiest parts of the procedure — both for the equine patient and for the doctors and technicians.

Now, I’ve never gone under anesthesia myself (knock on wood) but what I hear is that it can be quite disorienting. The same is true for our equine compatriots and we’re all familiar with how they react when scared and confused; as prey animals, they run! But trying to vamoose while disoriented can quickly become dangerous as a panicked patient can wind up injuring themselves or those around them.

In this neat clip from the series Life at Vet U which aired on Animal Planet last fall, we take a peak at the University of Pennsylvania New Bolton Center’s state-of-the-art recovery pool. Dr. Dean Richardson, Chief of Large Animal Surgery at PennVet, explains how the pool aids in recovery, particularly in orthopedic cases: