I strongly oppose this amendment. For the health and safety of our patients we all (LVTs and DVMs) took a oath to protect our patients and do no harm. Allowing assistants to place IV catheters becomes a slippery slope of pushing boundaries and guidelines we all swore to uphold to protect our patients. In a majority of the comments people have voiced supporting this if proper training was done. My question is who would monitor that the training? Veterinarians who say they are already strapped for time so when would that training be done? All it takes is one patient to have a critical issue with a misplacement and/or complication post catheterization for things to become catastrophic. Which would cause a ripple affect of ramifications from the head of the profession (veterinarians) down to their supportive staff which included licensed veterinary technicians.  Not only that but this will also begin to devalue current and future licensed veterinary technicians which are priceless. 

Reading through all the comments that are supporting this amendment I find a common thread that there are not enough LVTs. This should be a big flag to the veterinarians and veterinary community! Everyone should be asking why this is and  how do we break the cycle? Granted this is not the space to debate this issue but it should be a discussion for every veterinarian association to ponder.