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How to draw up a vaccine or other injectable medication with Dr. Mike Tokiwa | VETgirl Veterinary Continuing Education Videos

In this VETgirl online veterinary continuing education video, Dr. Mike Tokiwa at Progressive Veterinary Care reviews how to draw up a vaccine or other injectable medication in your veterinary practice. This is a procedure veterinary technicians, veterinary assistants, and staff MUST feel comfortable performing, regardless of what type of practice you are in: general practice, shelter medicine, emergency, specialty practice… you name it! Whether it is drawing up vaccines versus antimicrobials or other pharmaceutical agents, this is a MUST to make sure patient care is medically correct and that medical errors do not occur! When in doubt, always confirm the product/drug you are drawing up, check the mg/ml concentration (if appropriate), and make sure the product is handled and labelled appropriately and correctly. And when it doubt, it’s ok to use two hands (vs. one). For vaccines, one-handed technique is fine, but more importantly, make sure you’ve drawn up the medication/vaccine appropriately and correctly!

  1. This video was very interesting to me because I had not heard of the one hand method for drawing vaccines. The concept makes sense, especially because it compares well to blood draws. I recently became an assistant and should be learning how to draw blood in the next few weeks. Practicing the one hand draw with a vial of diluent, as demonstrated in the video, may be the exercise I need to succeed in drawing up injections in a timely manner and apply that knowledge when it comes time to learn blood draws. I also had not known the exact duration of time in which a constituted vaccine needed to be used before it needs discarded.

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