Which monitoring equipment does your practice need for the zombie apocalypse?

Shutterstock.comIf we were to encounter the zombie apocalypse and I could only take two monitors with me (cause, you know, we'd be doing a lot of anesthesia during that time), the two I would take with me would be the Parks Doppler blood flow detector and an end-tidal CO2 monitor. One of my favorites is the EMMA by Masimo just because it's small and lightweight and it's an in-line monitor. And the EMMA II is even better because it includes a capnograph that offers graphic representation of each breath.

And those two monitors I would choose because I can use it on every single species, including humans, large animals, small animals, exotics-it doesn't matter the size. I can still gain information about my patients just with these two monitors. I can get blood pressure in certain animals. I can look at blood flow and I can get a sense of cardiac output.

I'm also a big fan of the Midmark company-high-quality monitors, good technical support and good technologies within their monitors. So they're veterinary specific, which is important. And so the Cardell blood pressure monitor is one of my favorites because it works very well in a variety of different sized patients. So I know I can trust the trends in small patients as well as larger dogs.

What's new?

It's a new monitor that's up and coming from the company Sentier. Their product [Vetcorder] is a pulse oximeter and an electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor. And the ECG is only two leads, but at the University of Wisconsin our anesthesia residents carry this in their pocket and can use it for spot checks on patients.

For example, there was a horse that presented and it was kind of down in the trailer, and the anesthesia resident hooked it up and was able to get pulse ox and an ECG right there in the trailer. So it's this little portable monitor that's really good for those intermittent spot checks if you're managing multiple cases, and the size is very convenient to carry around with you. (Learn more about the latest Midmark Cardell and Sentier Vetcorder at dvm360.com/wearables.)