Veterinary Technician Anesthesia

Getting Your Veterinary Technician Anesthesia Specialist Certification

One way to improve your salary as a veterinary technician is to get a specialist certification, such as the Veterinary Technician Anesthesia certification offered by the Academy of Veterinary Technician Anesthetists (AVTA). It might take a lot of training and practice to build up the necessary skills, but this will open up more jobs and give you a higher salary so it is worth it if you have an interest in this area.

Getting Your License

The first thing you need to do to become a Veterinary Technician Anesthesia is to get your license to practice in your state, preferably after having completed an AVMA approved veterinary technology program (although this is not currently required). Once you are licensed, you need to work at least 3 years and 6000 hours, 4500 of them providing anesthesia care to patients, before you can apply for this specialty certification.

Continuing Education Curriculum

You must complete more than 40 hours of continuing education in the area of anesthesia (in case some hours are rejected by the committee you still want to have a total of 40 accepted). You can include photo copies of the course descriptions if this will make it clearer how they apply.

You need to submit between 50 and 75 case logs, including a varied case selection that includes cases from ASA I-V. These cases need to be from the year you submit your application (from January to December). As you need at least 50 to be approved by the committee, it is best to submit a few extra.

You need to write properly formatted case reports. Make sure to go to the AVTA website in order to find out how they require these to be written. The case reports should be for especially difficult cases or those which show off your skills the best. The outcome of the case is not considered, since it is your skills as an anesthetist that are being evaluated, so don't worry about this when you choose the cases for submission.

You need to have a veterinarian sign off on your skills list, saying that you are capable of performing all of the skills necessary as a Veterinary Technician Anesthesia specialist on your own and have done so multiple times. This way they will know that you have not only learned about the necessary skills, but that you can actually perform them yourself.

Once you have compiled all of the necessary information, you will need to submit it for consideration in order to get your Veterinary Technician Anesthesia specialization.

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