Get to know Dr Keagan Boustead
'Since moving to Durban at the beginning of 2021, I have been working at Westville Veterinary Hospital, where I am primarily responsible for providing an anaesthesia service for the hospital to critically ill patients as well as complicated surgical cases. My time is shared with the University of Pretoria where I lecture part time in veterinary anaesthesia.' The primary responsibility of an anaesthetist is to optimise patient outcome in the perioperative period. This entails developing personalised protocols (drugs, dosages, type of monitoring equipment used) based on each patients underlying medical condition, and surgical procedure. Anaesthetists are also extensively involved in the management of critically ill patients. In the veterinary field there are not many anaesthetists and South Africa currently only has 3 registered specialists in veterinary anaesthesia. The primary reason for this is that the surgical procedure becomes “too expensive”, as extra cost needs b...