Veterinary technicians report in a survey how futile veterinary treatments contribute to their moral distress and impact their professional and personal lives.

Objective: To document veterinary technicians' (VTs') experiences with medical futility and its subsequent impact on moral distress and attrition from the profession.

Methods: A cross-sectional study using a 56-question web-based, confidential and anonymous survey was distributed through the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America between January 19 and February 15, 2023.

Results: There were 1,944 responses from approximately 8,500 members (22% response rate).

Medical futility is commonly encountered in small animal clinical practice.

Objective: To document veterinarians' perceptions and understanding of medical futility and determine the frequency with which medical futility occurs in small animal practice.

Sample: 477 veterinarians in small animal general and specialty veterinary practice.

Procedures: A cross-sectional study was performed with a 25-question, web-based, confidential, anonymous survey distributed through various professional veterinary specialty associations.

Utilizing SEER Cancer Registries for Population-Based Cancer Survivor Epidemiologic Studies: A Feasibility Study.

Background: While the primary role of central cancer registries in the United States is to provide vital information needed for cancer surveillance and control, these registries can also be leveraged for population-based epidemiologic studies of cancer survivors. This study was undertaken to assess the feasibility of using the NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program registries to rapidly identify, recruit, and enroll individuals for survivor research studies and to assess their willingness to engage in a variety of research activities.

Methods: In 2016 and 2017, six SEER registries recruited both recently diagnosed and longer-term survivors with early age-onset multiple myeloma or colorectal, breast, prostate, or ovarian cancer.

Pain and Palliative Care Service, Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-Angell Animal Medical Center.

A veterinary palliative care service was developed as a specialty service in 2006 at a large, nonprofit teaching veterinary hospital. The service originally was conceived as a pain medicine service, but quickly refocused on palliative care because a need was evident. The Pain and Palliative Care Service at Angell Animal Medical Center is structured primarily as an outpatient service, but does provide consultation services for hospitalized patients.

Overcoming Obstacles to Palliative Care: Lessons to Learn from Our Physician Counterparts.

In the past 40 years, the field of palliative care for people faced many of the same obstacles in development and expansion that veterinary palliative care now confronts. A series of interviews with pioneers in human palliative care revealed what those early obstacles were professionally, personally, and institutionally. Many of the hurdles are strikingly similar to what veterinary professionals are currently facing in their attempts to grow palliative care as both an independent subspecialty and an integrated part of general practice.

Ethical conflict and moral distress in veterinary practice: A survey of North American veterinarians.

Background: Concerns about ethical conflicts, moral distress, and burnout in veterinary practice are steadily increasing. Root causes of these problems have not been rigorously identified. Little research has been done to evaluate the existence of moral distress in North American veterinarians or to explore its impact on career sustainability and poor well-being.

Oxygen delivery.

Early recognition of failure of oxygen delivery and knowledge of how medications can alter oxygen delivery allow clinicians to institute appropriate therapies in a timely manner and can result in improved patient outcomes. Oxygen delivery can be estimated and evaluated using a variety of methods, including arterial blood gas sampling, blood lactate quantification, echocardiography, and direct cardiac output measurement. Delivery can be enhanced by manipulating the components of the oxygen delivery formula.

Magnesium disturbances in critically ill patients.

Magnesium alterations can have a noticeable effect on the neuromuscular cardiovascular, and metabolic systems. With recent advances in point-of-care testing, it is now easier to monitor for changes in the serum magnesium concentration and implement therapies in the critical care setting. This article reviews the normal homeostatic mechanisms, clinical abnormalities, and therapeutic strategies for magnesium disturbances in critically ill patients.

Cultivating rural healthcare professionals: the Norfolk General Hospital Health Science Perspectives Program.

Studies around the world have shown that where healthcare professionals establish their practices is influenced by where they grow up and receive their training. In our Simcoe, Ontario-based Norfolk General Hospital (NGH), about 40% of our physicians and 80% of other medical health professionals study nearby and return here to their rural roots.