I strongly support Dr. Allen's proposed change to the regulation.  Experienced assistants should be able to place IV catheters under the direct supervision of a veterinarian, but only licensed techinicians should be placing jugular or central line catheters.  Our clinic has several licensed technicians and would like to hire more, but there just don't seem to be enough, so we'll hire an experienced assistant instead.

In an ideal world, we would only have licensed technicians, but this would this raise our fees (which our clients already complain about) and it's not financially feasible for some of our assistants.   Because catheter placement is a skill, a veterinary assistant with 10 years of experience would theoretically be a better choice than a newly licensed to place a catheter on a sick or aggressive patient.