According to VA statutes, if they are letting unlicensed techs place catheters and administer and monitor anesthesia, they are breaking the law. If you look at 150-4 from
here, there was specifically a question about cystocentesis being performed by LVT's given that they are trained to do so in tech school. While the answer is yes, this implies to me that this would NOT fall under the list of acceptable duties for someone with NO formal training or licensure (as it should be, IMO, given that sticking a needle into an animal's abdomen has the potential to do a lot of damage). In fact, if you look at the history I posted above, it is only within the last 10 years that assistants could even give non-scheduled drugs legally under the supervision of a vet. In the 1990's, I couldn't have even had my current job.
A. The Virginia Board of Veterinary Medicine adopted a motion which states that a properly licensed veterinarian may cause drugs, excluding Schedule II through V, to be administered (including via injection) by a properly trained assistant under the veterinarian's direction and supervision.
BTW, besides my current job in LA, I shadowed a friend at a SA hospital in NoVA. Everything at this large 24/7 practice was run very much by-the-book from what I could see, and most of the nursing was done by LVT's. Unlicensed assistants were there mostly to walk dogs, restrain animals, sit with patients during recovery from anesthesia, etc. Compare this to another large practice in MD where I informally shadowed a vet I knew from LA -- they had mostly unlicensed techs who put in catheters, etc. As I said above, there are certainly practices which deviate in either direction regarding what unlicensed techs are allowed to do, but if you look at the actual laws and interpretation by the Board of Veterinary Medicine, VA is a relatively restrictive state.
Quantized, MD law says nothing about unlicensed techs administering scheduled drugs, so I assume that it is OK as long as they are doing so under the supervision of a vet with a DEA number and everything is recorded. I don't know for sure, though.
At my job in VA (at a teaching hospital, so, being state funded in part, presumably they are up on state regulations), unlicensed techs may administer diazepam and butorphanol. Diazepam is kept in a lockbox where we can access it in case of a seizure, but butorphanol and all other scheduled substances are kept where only doctors and anesthesia techs can access them unless a horse is on it regularly, in which case they put it in our lockbox. A licensed tech or vet must administer morphine, ketamine, Beuthanasia, etc.
