Advances in veterinary anesthesia and pain management have transformed animal welfare in medical and research contexts, but gaps in access, training, and implementation mean benefits are not yet equitably distributed.
Pain management in veterinary medicine has advanced dramatically in recent decades, but the translation from research to practice is uneven. What is available in a well-equipped small animal hospital in a high-income country may be entirely absent in a rural agricultural veterinary context. Training gaps, cost barriers, and cultural norms about animal pain all create barriers to optimal pain management. Advances in multimodal analgesia, local anesthetic techniques, and species-specific pain assessment tools represent genuine improvements in the welfare toolkit. Closing the gap between best practice and routine practice requires training investment, regulatory requirements, and client education about pain management expectations.