My students enjoy hearing about the animals I work on. By sharing with them, they are able to learn about veterinary medicine and exotic animals. In every post I have provided 'essential knowledge' for those who wish to learn about or aspire to persue a career in veterinary medicine. Take a moment to read about interesting veterinary cases and learn a little along the way.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Today I worked on a Polar Bear. These large top predators are known for eating seals, but also eat vegitation. The bear today weighed 220kg (440 pounds) with paws as round as basketballs. Anesthesia was induced with an injectable anesthetic called Telazol. Anesthesia was maintained with isoflurane and respiration was supplimented with mechanical ventilation. As you might imagine, a bear of this size has a fairly large lung capacity or tidal volume. To calculate the tidal volume of an animal, it is assumed that 10-20ml of oxygen is required for each kilogram of body weight (10-20ml/kg). Using this relationship, the tidal volume for this bear would be between 2-4 liters per breath. An adult human, for comparison, has a tidal volume of between 0.7-1.4 liters per breath. Oh yeah, she required a 20mm endotracheal tube!
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