Health care for man's best friend Published May 22, 2012 By Mike Joseph JBSA-Lackland Public Affairs JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas -- The Department of Defense Military Working Dog Veterinary Service recently posted an online health care provider guide for clinical management of injured or ill military working dogs in deployed environments in the absence of veterinary personnel. A project almost two years in the making, the training guide is a compilation of 18 clinical practice guidelines posted on the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, Joint Trauma System, Clinical Practice Guidelines website for health care providers. The guidelines were compiled by veterinary and human medical professionals in the U.S. Army Medical Department, U.S. Army Forces Command and Special Operations communities. "We have taken the skill set of human health care providers and provided them with the tools they need to save life, limb and eyesight, and to stabilize a working dog until they can move them into the veterinary system," said U.S. Army Col. (Dr.) Kelly Mann, director of DOD MWD Veterinary Service at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. "This isn't meant to turn someone into a veterinarian," said Mann, who coordinated the project and edited the guidelines. "This allows those highly skilled health care providers who see trauma cases first to respond to an injury before a military working dog makes it to a combat support hospital." Mann said the guidelines are not intended as a textbook, but as recommendations for care and consistent standard operating procedures focused on battlefield MWD trauma for health care providers. The guidelines supply: -- non-veterinary health care providers with general information concerning the handling of military work dogs; -- medical guidance and scope of practice for health care providers on the management of seriously ill or injured MWDs for initial resuscitation and stabilization of life- and limb-threatening conditions warranting health care provider intervention; and -- assistance to veterinarians and animal technicians who train health care providers. "In the past, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, there was always some version of local SOPs," Mann said. "There is a rotation system all the time. Veterinary units come and go, combat support hospitals come and go, and they don't necessarily come and go at the same time. "Many times things get lost in the battlefield handoff. SOPs can wander all over the place. This sets up a standardization of how to treat a dog (in a trauma situation)," he added. The guidelines are for health care providers who may or may not be co-located with a veterinary unit and surgical team. The guidelines provide information that covers comparative anatomy and dosages for common drugs among both humans and canines. Written by experts in both veterinary and human medicine, the guidelines cover areas such as emergency critical care, surgery, internal medicine and radiology. Mann said information on the veterinary side was focused from veterinarians who had served in theater the last two years. "This arms those medical providers who are non-veterinary with more knowledge about the MWD program," said Mann. "This is another tool for better (trauma) care of dogs serving in the battlefield in the absence of a veterinarian. "It's like the Golden Hour idea (a time period lasting from a few minutes to several hours following traumatic injury during which there is the highest likelihood that prompt medical treatment will prevent death) to help the dog live until it can get further definitive care carried out by the veterinarian."