New 3D-Printed Model Trains Caregivers How to Tube Feed Kittens
Engineering Design and Veterinary Medicine Meet to Create Better Teaching Method for Necessary Technique
Tube feeding is a specialized skill required when caring for kittens under 4 weeks old, but caregivers often learn it on an ad hoc basis when a newborn is most in need. A professor of veterinary medicine and a team of development engineers aim to improve and increase access to the training of this technique with a 3D-printed kitten model they created at the University of California, Davis.
The idea started with Karen Vernau, a clinical professor at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and a faculty advisor for The Orphan Kitten Project, or OKP. The OKP is a student-run non-profit organization within the School of Veterinary Medicine that rescues neonatal kittens, or those 4 weeks old and younger.
"I spend a lot of time with the students in the Orphan Kitten Project every year to teach them how to assess and tube feed kittens," Vernau said.
Training students how to safely tube feed is a time-consuming process, and it is not feasible to train everyone with a live kitten. At a shelter like OKP, where the kittens are so young and in need of care, tube feeding needs to happen right away.