I am writing to express my concern with the proposed changes regarding the delegation of duties to veterinary assistants.  I want to echo what other veterinarians have said.  By limiting the staff that are capable of administering and monitoring anesthesia, it will severely limit our ability to give quality care to patients in a timely manner.  

Delegating anesthetic monitoring of intubated patients solely to a veterinarian or licensed technician will place additional levels of burden on teams that are already stretched thin by the lack of available LVT’s. The most current statistics indicate that in Virginia there are 0.48 licensed technicians for every veterinarian, not taking into consideration the uneven distribution between urban and rural practices. Given the high rate of burnout resulting in a large number of graduates leaving the field less than 5 years after graduating, the veterinary community is going to be hard pressed to employ enough staff to abide by regulations.

Please reconsider the change to these regulations.