Page 84 - JSOM Spring 2025

FIGURE 2 Participant responses by group and technique.

DVM = veterinarians; MD = emergency physician residents; CTT = cricothyrotomy; TT = tube tracheostomy.

procedures is common among new clinicians; therefore, hav- DVMs with relatively similar training and experience and nei-
ing more opportunities to engage in surgical procedures and ther group had experience with both techniques. However,
practice tissue handling skills likely accounted for the reduced the additional years of clinical experience may have afforded
tissue trauma among experimenters with more clinical prac- the MD group more surgical exposures leading to a greater
tice experience. During TT the DVM group caused a relatively confidence in surgical and tissue handling skills; accounting
equal level of damage to that during CTT. Unfamiliarity with for the shorter CTT performance time and less tissue trauma
the TT technique and underlying tissue structures associated observed in the MD group. Considering CTT is the surgical
with a novel canine patient model may have contributed to the emergent airway access technique taught in human medicine
discrepancy in tissue trauma between CTT and TT caused by while uncommonly taught in the current professional veteri-
the MD group. It is important to note that while damage to nary curricula, the MD group’s prior knowledge and exposure
the tissues varied among individuals, overall, the damage was to CTT may also have accounted for their shorter performance
considered mild to moderate and unlikely to cause significant times. Another limitation may be incorporating less experi-
clinical complications. enced, newly graduated VCOs since their results most likely
do not represent the greater population of veterinarians that
Limitations possess multiple years of clinical and surgical experience. A
There are several limitations that may have influenced the population of veterinarians with greater surgical and tissue
overall outcomes of the study. First, this study was designed handling experience may have recorded shorter performance
as a pilot study and was not powered to ascertain definitive times and less tissue damage. The crossover design, in which
differences between groups. Another limitation may include the second technique was not performed on a fresh cadaver,
the disparity in years of clinical experience and prior training may have caused tissue and anatomical distortions that in-
in CTT between the MD and DVM groups. The participants terfered with the participants’ second technique. Every effort
in this experiment were selected to try to represent MDs and was made in preparing the cadaver for the second technique

82 | JSOM Volume 25, Edition 1 / Spring 2025