Per Rectum

It's basically a right of passage. The activity that turns you from vet student to Vet Student. The activity that all pre-clinical students must endure and then make up findings during clinics. What on earth am I talking about? Rectal palpations of the cow, of course. Grossed out yet? Horrified for the poor cow (and student)? Trying to figure out exactly how that works?

Here's the deal - before you go calling the humane society and your local PETA activists, this is what you must know. Rectal palpation of the cow is a completely normal, routine medical procedure that 99% of cows go through multiple times during their life span. It allows us to determine pregnancy and infertility, as well as disease of the reproductive tract. If you're wondering why we go in the rectum instead of the "other," ahem, hole, well you just stop and think about which sounds more uncomfortable. Also, if you stick your hand in the pregnant tract, you're going to find a closed cervix, end of story. That doesn't tell you much. You only know that the tract has closed itself off for some reason but not if there is disease, if the cow is a couple months pregnant, or maybe she's ready to pop!

So yes, with a giant plastic sleeve covering from finger tips to shoulder, we put copious amounts of medical lubricant on our hands and gently work our way in. The cow shifts around in annoyance initially, then settles in to just squeezing the heck out of your arm while your inside. You have to make sure all the feces are out of the way our else you'll just be feeling that instead of the smooth lining of rectal and colonic mucosa. As you feel that mucosa, you're feeling for lumps in the reproductive tract (such as the cervix or the ovaries) which lie directly below the terminal GI tract. It's not overly difficult, but as a new student, you're sliding your hand around in there thinking "what the heck, I feel nothing and this is gross." One of my classmates has done thousands of palpations and was super happy and excited for this lab. He's been waiting years for this! He was showing off and diagnosing pregnant cows like crazy. I was very happy for him, but I did not share his enthusiasm. We have quite a few pictures from the group of all our disgusted faces. It's gross. There is nothing pretty about dealing with the back side of farm animals, period. There's a lot of fecal matter and urine flying everywhere, and I was so grateful to have my protective coveralls on. I managed to stay pretty darn clean, but most of my classmates weren't so fortunate. I think the best part of my day was coming home for that cleansing shower!!