Mobile Surgeons Best Practices

Comprehensive best practices for mobile veterinary surgeons covering insurance, scheduling, equipment, consent, communication, patient care, and post-op protocols.
Contact Us

Best Practices for Mobile Veterinary Surgeons

Insurance coverage

  • PLIT liability
  • Overhead
  • Equipment at home base and in the car
  • Workers’ compensation
  • Vehicle
  • Employee umbrella
  • Disability – long and short term

Business agreement

Signed with individual partner clinics for who is responsible for each part of a surgical case.

  • Scheduling
  • Billing and estimates
  • Drug inventory usage
  • Client communication
  • Support staff utilization
  • Patient discharges and written instructions
  • Patient care and monitoring before, during, and after a procedure
  • Surgical and anesthetic equipment maintenance

Owner informed consent form for your surgical practice

  • Written and orally communicated
  • Signed by the owner and potentially witnessed
  • Include social media and anesthesia awareness

Plan of post-op recovery

  • Who is recovering the patient
  • When the patient care is handed over from the surgeon to the partner clinic

Follow-up for routine or issues

  • Who is performing follow-up exams
  • When will follow-up exams occur
  • Who will communicate with the owner about follow-up exams or issues

In Clinic Check List

  • Correct patient, procedure, and surgery site
  • Client consent form signed for correct procedure, patient side, and surgeon
  • Check skin, premeds, recent bloodwork, radiographs, weight
  • Anesthesia machine, monitoring equipment, and Operating suite – ready, working, and clean
  • Correct rough scrub, surgical scrub solutions, clean clippers and blades for shaving, vacuum

Consider pre-, intra-, and postop checklists to verify

  • When were the last medications given PO, SQ, or IV
  • Pain management (doses, drugs, and frequency)
  • Antibiotic administration (doses, drugs, and frequency)
  • IV Fluids (type, rate, and duration)
  • Follow-up bloodwork, cultures, or histopathology submissions
  • Bandage placement and/or removal

Client communication post-op

  • Procedure performed
  • Prognosis
  • Potential complications
  • Owner responsibilities
  • Progress exams to be performed
  • Level of care and communication post-procedure to expect
  • Ask owners if they have any questions and if they understood everything

Referring veterinarian communication postop

Provide same-day postop instructions and surgery reports
  • Should include all details of the surgical procedure and surgical findings
  • Include recommendations for Abs, pain management, and progress exams
  • Copies should be retained by the surgeon, as dictated by state medical boards
Discuss procedure performed, prognosis, and postoperative care, including pain
management, Abs, owner communication, followup (how much, when, and by whom)

Though it is a personal choice which of these tasks are performed by the surgeon, referral veterinarian, or technician, it is the surgeon’s ultimate responsibility, as a traveling professional, to assure optimal patient care, safety and owner communication is established with proper expectations as to the level of care and communication preoperatively.

All surgery patients should have radiographs & appropriate bloodwork performed before the morning of surgery. Please make sure you are allotting your staff enough time to check skin for possible infection issues, for IV catheter placement, & for drugs to be calculated & prepared before you arrive for surgery.

Patient Intake Checklist:

  • Last time any medications were given
  • Surgical Consent Form
  • Confirm the surgery to be performed & the surgical site(s)
  • Confirm the owner’s telephone #

Pre-Op Checklist:

  • Radiographs are readily available for viewing & measurements
  • Current bloodwork
  • Patient file readily available
  • IV Catheter placed
  • Leak check ET tubes
  • Clippers with a clean #40 blade & Kool Lube
  • Vetwrap
  • Surgical scrub
  • Vacuum
  • Calculate IV Fluids
    ○ Canine: 5ml/kg/hr
    ○ Feline: 3ml/kg/hr
  • Calculate Pre-meds, pre/post-op IV Cefazolin (22mg/kg), NSAID & analgesics
  • Give pre-med at least 30 minutes before the scheduled surgery time

OR Checklist:

  • Leak check & set up anesthetic machine(s)
  • Cap/mask for the anesthetist
  • IV Fluids & IV pump
  • Heat support for the patient before, during & after surgery
  • 1L bag of LRS or 0.9% NaCl for surgical lavage
  • 1 roll of tape (1” or 2”)
  • IV pole
  • 4 large Towels
  • Bandage material

Post-Op Checklist:

  • Post-op radiographs
  • Bandage
  • E-collar
  • Post-op drugs
  • Edit discharges (input medication specifics in the highlighted section) & prepare go-home meds
  • Clean OR:
    ○ Wipe down/dust all surfaces & overhead lights
    ○ Sweep/mop floors & under the surgery table