• Understand the administrative, legal and ethical issues involving the critically ill patient
• Appreciate triage systems and detail a suitable initial patient assessment
• Explain emergency vascular access techniques including jugular and intra-osseous routes
• Understand pain management, stabilisation and monitoring
• Review health and safety concerns and precautions including managing a situation involving potential zoonoses
• Be familiar with infectious diseases and preventative healthcare

Key learning objectives:

• Assess, recognise and treat shock
• Develop your appreciation of the indications for the different types of fluid therapy with their advantages and disadvantages and the need for electrolyte supplementation.
• Review techniques for venous access : sites, catheter placement, preparations and complications including advanced techniques and intraosseous techniques
• Have a general understanding of acid-base balance and its treatment
• Explain the need to monitor for complications during treatment and to record central venous pressure
• Appreciate the importance of acute malnutrition
• Formulate a plan to provide enteral, total parenteral and partial parenteral nutrition
• Most common drugs used in emergency cases and how to use them (dosing and uses):
  • Pharmacokinetics, potential interactions and adverse effects of common therapeutics agents (including anaesthetics, anti-inflammatories, analgesics, anti-microbials and antiparasitics)
  • Use of sedatives, analgesics and neuromuscular blockers

• Understand sampling techniques, processing, storage and data recording
• Apply knowledge to using the microscope to examine blood smears, urinary sediment and basic cytology and be able to diagnose common acute and chronic conditions seen in general practice
• Assess haemostasis
• Interpret clinical laboratory medicine information including haematology, biochemistry, electrolyte and arterial and blood gas analyses
• Consider when transfusion should be considered and appreciate that there are no ‘magic’ numbers
• Select appropriate blood products and protocols to minimise adverse outcomes
• Manage common conditions leading to haematological abnormalities requiring transfusion

• Detail an approach to patient stabilisation prior to anaesthesia
• Select appropriate parenteral and inhalational anaesthetic regimes and appreciate their relative advantages and disadvantages. Sedation versus anaesthesia
• Have an understanding of anaesthetic equipment and monitoring techniques and their advantages and disadvantages
• Explain the selection of NSAIDs, opioids, local anaesthetic and topical treatment options for the emergency patient
• Understand the pharmacokinetics, potential interactions and adverse effects of commonly used therapeutic agents including anti-microbials and anti-parasiticides in addition to anaesthetics and anti-inflammatories in the emergency patient
• Consider the use of neuromuscular blockers

• Stabilise a patient prior to surgery, plan surgery and manage complications
• Appreciate the indications for immediate surgical intervention
• Understand surgical asepsis, theatre protocol and the rational use of anti-microbials in surgical patients
• Approach the acute management of haemostasis, abdominal and respiratory trauma
• Approach external soft tissue wounds, myocardial injury and musculoskeletal trauma

Key learning objectives:

• Approach the acute abdomen
• Understand the common emergency conditions affecting the oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver and pancreas, including Canine Parvovirus and Portosystemic shunt
• Formulate a diagnostic plan, including the use of imaging modalities, and effective monitoring strategies for these cases
• Consolidate your appreciation of appropriate surgical intervention

Key learning objectives:

• Apply diagnostic techniques including laboratory investigations and imaging to these cases
• Investigate and manage common renal and urinary tract emergencies
• Understand the principles of renal, ureteral, bladder and urethral surgery
• Formulate an approach to cystocentesis and the placing and maintenance of urinary catheters and appreciate their limitations
• Improve your knowledge of normal reproductive physiology and function and the physiology of conversion from foetal to neonatal circulation
• Appreciate the common important clinical signs associated with reproductive and paediatric emergencies
• Plan a diagnostic approach to these cases and manage common conditions

Key learning objectives:

• Understand the cardiovascular assessment and management of patients presented with cardiovascular emergencies
• Utilise and interpret a range of diagnostic techniques including ECGs, radiographs, echocardiographs and laboratory data
• Diagnose and manage acute canine congestive heart failure, feline cardiomyopathy and aortic thromboembolism
• Recognise and manage pericardial disease and understand how to perform pericardiocentesis
• Identify and manage cardiac arrhythmias
• Consider the predisposing factors likely to result in cardiac arrest, how this changes the approach to CPR and determining prognosis following CPR
• Understand the various components of CPR (DABC) and their various importance

Key learning objectives:

• Understand the general approach to dyspnoea
• Utilise and interpret a range of diagnostic techniques for respiratory patients including auscultation, radiography, endoscopy and arterial blood gas analysis to localise the underlying cause
• Appreciate the methods of oxygen delivery and be able to monitor the efficacy of treatment
• Review the problems associated with oxygen delivery
• Explain the techniques available for drainage of the pleural cavity

Key learning objectives:

• Perform a neurological examination
• Select appropriate diagnostic tests and apply them to individual cases, including radiography and CSF analysis
• Understand how to manage common neurological emergencies
• Appreciate the fundamentals of neurosurgery
• Recall the common toxicities such as insecticides, molluscicides, rodenticides,herbicides, household preparations and plants
• Diagnose, treat and assess the prognosis of patients presented with the common poisonings

Key learning objectives:

• Perform a practical ophthalmological examination
• Recognise normal features and variants
• Formulate a diagnostic approach to common presentations including the red eye, ocular pain, ocular discharge and blindness
• Understand the medical and surgical management of common ocular conditions including corneal ulceration, uveitis and glaucoma
• Consolidate your understanding of ocular manifestations of systemic disease
• Select current ocular medications and have an understanding of therapeutics

Key learning objectives:

• Detail the common metabolic conditions requiring urgent or emergency therapy
• Be familiar with the impact of metabolic disturbances on the patient’s major body systems
• Devise an approach to the diagnosis and management of common diseases including hypoadrenocorticism and diabetes mellitus
• Approach, diagnosis and management of Sepsis in dogs and cats
• Understand key diagnostic tests and their application
• Appreciate the complications encountered during therapy, their prevention and management

Key learning objectives:

• Interpret the practical findings of a physical examination
• Formulate a diagnostic approach to common presentations of emergency conditions
• Manage common emergency conditions
• Approach the anaesthesia and analgesia of these species in emergency situations

• CPCR
• Feeding tubes placement
• Arterial blood collection
• Central venous catheter placement
• Nasal cannula placement
• Venous cut down
• Tracheotomy and chest drain placement

• Emergency abdominal surgery including the approach to the acute abdomen and peritonitis, enterotomy and enterectomy
• Gastric dilatation/ volvulus and gastropexies
• Splenectomy
• Perineal urethrostomy in the cat

• Recall the evolution of POCUS in veterinary medicine: from FAST to VetBlue protocol
• Describe normal and abnormal images
• Recognise pneumothorax, B lines (and their significance), shred sign and lung hepatisation
• Review literature

Practical component:

• The thorax
• Review the different windows to perform a TFAST
• Assess the pulmonary and cardiographic views
• Recognise the glide sign, the curtain size and the caudal vena cava 
• Perform an approach to the heart considering La/ao view and ratio
• The abdomen
• Review the different windows to perform a AFAST
• Interpret the scoring system