Feedback on the recent Veterinary Nursing OSCE Examinations can be found below. Please ensure you and your students are familiar with this guidance:
Laboratory
Many students failed to mix the urine and reading the Refractometer and Multistix correctly are a cause for concern. The blood smear should be left vertically to dry and when placing a slide onto the mechanical stage of the microscope the label should be to the left. It is also important to label any slide used with the chinagraph pencil .
Nursing care
Throughout these tasks the hospitalisation sheet was not completed fully or correctly. Needles should be changed prior to injection into the animal, which should all be restrained for any procedure. Needles should never be re-sheathed. We strongly recommend that there is plenty of practice in the calculation and dispensing of medication as poor results were seen for the dispensing task during its debut in March. It is vital that the candidate seek approval for the dispensed medication from the examiner to meet the recommended guidelines.
When bandaging it is important to ensure that the tension is correct and that the bandage includes the joints both above and below the affected area. The animal should be positioned with the injured limb uppermost and assistance should be sought to facilitate this.
Whilst administering the tube feed it is vital to give the correct volumes of food and water slowly. The required calculation is based on feeding charts supplied with each food choice and the requested number of daily feeds. All equipment should be disposed of correctly on completion.
The urinary catheter task requires that you dispose of the urine correctly – this must be done whilst still wearing the gloves for health and safety reasons. Correct methodology must be observed for the calculation of the daily expected urine output.
The new Fluid Therapy task caused problems for many students who ran out of time. It is vital that students work with the figures they are given on any hospital chart and not try to recalculate figures. Prior to the exams there should have been plenty of practice in working out drip rates – this is particularly important for students who are regularly using drip pumps in Practice.
Anaesthesia
Students must ensure that the APL valve is left fully open on completion of the task. All circuits should now be leak tested. Only the mini-lack task requires that the flowmeter be set to the calculated Fresh Gas Flow.
Theatre Practice
When packaging the drape it is important to remember that a TST strip must be placed into the middle of the drape. The quantity must be recorded on the outer packaging in addition to the date of sterilisation and the initials of the candidate
All calculations must detail not only the correct units but also the time.
Ineffective WHO hand hygiene technique lead to failures on both the urinary catheter and blood sample tasks, ensure this has been fully practised following the key steps so as to avoid any unnecessary errors.
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