ACM50212 Diploma of Veterinary Nursing (Surgical)

If you’re a qualified vet nurse who enjoys assisting with surgery, our Diploma of Veterinary Nursing (Surgical) allows you to specialise and grow your surgical technical skills and nursing knowledge.

The Diploma of Veterinary Nursing (Surgical) ensures you’re well equipped to work within a specialist or referral centre or university vet hospital, supporting registered specialist veterinary surgeons and nursing advanced surgical cases.

Our Surgical Diploma means you can expect to assist with:

Neurosurgical cases
Thoracotomy patients
Advanced orthopaedic procedures
Complicated wound care
Soft tissue cases.

Some of the duties you’ll perform include:

Advanced anaesthesia monitoring
Scrubbing in to assist with surgical procedures
Nursing advanced cases with feeding tubes, chest drains, etc.
Managing and mentoring teams of nurses working with these cases.

The course is delivered entirely by distance education using our online 'Student Portal.' This allows you the flexibility to study when it suits your schedule. You won’t need to attend any on-campus classes. We’ve designed the course to fit around your work and lifestyle.

How is the course structured?

Our Diploma (Surgical) is a ‘taught’ course.

That means we teach you the skills and knowledge required and then you apply that knowledge to your own, real-world cases, rather than just being asked to do a stack of assessments and research.

You’ll still be required to undertake your own research for some assessments. However, we’ll guide you through what you need to know via 'knowledge checklists,' set textbooks, and structured self-assessment tasks to ensure you have the required knowledge before completing any exams or assessments.

Our course is divided into three distinct sections:

1. Advanced Nursing Theory

You’ll learn all the vital skills you need to nurse advanced cases, including:

Fluid therapy
Wound management
Physical therapy techniques
Advanced inpatient care
Radiology & imaging
Pain management
Workplace sustainability and managing OH&S within the vet clinic
Advanced anaesthesia monitoring
Effective sterilisation practices
Advanced instrumentation.

2. Advanced Surgical Nursing

We’ll teach you about the types of surgical cases and procedures you can expect when assisting a registered specialist veterinary surgeon, including:

Soft tissue surgery
Orthopaedic surgery
Thoracic surgery
Neurosurgical cases.
Mentoring and inspiring your team of nurses to deliver great customer service and patient care.

Each subject walks you through common procedures, how to assist, instrumentation required and how to nurse a patient post-operatively.

3. Case Logs & Practical Skills

You’ll then put this knowledge into practice in your real-world cases. You’ll need to complete a range of case studies (in conjunction with section 2), complete technical skill logs, and fill out nursing case logs.

Application Criteria

You must:

Have successfully completed Cert IV in Veterinary Nursing (ACM40410 or ACM40412). Students holding older qualifications or overseas qualifications will need to RPL to upgrade their qualification first.
Have suitable post qualification experience with surgical cases
Be employed in a veterinary practice for a minimum of 15 hrs a week that:
- Has a registered specialist veterinary surgeon either employed, or on a regular visitation schedule

- Be employed in a large general practice clinic that sees referral cases and has the right equipment to complete the majority of the course. You’ll be required to undertake work placements with a registered specialist veterinary surgeon to complete some parts of the course before being able to graduate.

If you work in a smaller general practice that sees more advanced surgical cases than normal clinics and has the right equipment, we may still accept your application. However, it’s likely you’ll need to undertake several work placements within a specialist centre to complete sections of the course.

Please note: These work placements must be arranged prior to your officially enrolling on the course. You can still apply and discuss your situation with us before arranging anything.

Students falling under this entry requirement are only accepted on a case-by-case basis. Our Nurse Educators reserve the right to make the final decision as to whether we think you’ll have access to the right caseload to successfully complete the course.