Emergency wound care

Wounds are a common occurrence in veterinary patients and trauma can often result in large and complex wounds which take specialised care to heal (Figure 1). While these more complex wounds take time, effort, and finances to heal, the reward at seeing patients heal makes treating these wounds worth the effort. The nursing team plays a vital role in patient care, bandage and patient management, and client education and must be familiar with how to treat a variety of wounds. There are a variety of wound types and treatment will vary based on the type. Wounds can be organised into the following categories:

When a patient presents to the hospital with a wound, regardless of cause or duration, the nursing team must be sure first to evaluate the entire patient starting with the patient's ABCs:

Traumatic situations leading to external wounds can also cause internal bleeding, lung injury, organ trauma, head trauma, and excessive bleeding that can lead to hypovolaemic shock. As blood and fluid loss and tissue damage occurs, perfusion to tissues and major organs will decrease. Reduced perfusion means decreased oxygen delivery to peripheral tissues and eventually to major organs. Shock occurs when cells cannot produce necessary energy due to the reduced oxygen delivery. Patients experiencing trauma can be in shock from lung injury (not performing gas exchange well enough to provide oxygen to cells), crushing injury (blood vessels are damaged and cannot carry oxygen to tissues) or from blood/fluid loss (not enough volume to carry oxygen to tissues). The clinical signs seen in these patients are the result of the body attempting to compensate for the lack of oxygen delivery and must be recognised so that treatment can begin immediately (Lichtenberger, 2011a).