Breaking news: I will never be a food animal vet

I smell like dead cow. (And Italian salad dressing, but that's mostly unrelated.)

**WARNING: The following post may be considered gruesome or disgusting by some. Read at your own risk. But heck, this is a blog about vet school, so I don't know why I'm even bothering to warn you.

Today we had the much acclaimed "hands-down best therio lab of the semester." To qualify that, let me add that (in my humble, therio-disliking, proponent-of-preventing-reproduction opinion) it would take only the most minimal change to make this lab better than every other lab we've had this semester.

But I digress.

The purpose of the lab was to give us some "hands-on" experience trying out some of the things we've been learning in the classroom during the last few weeks - mostly about pregnancy, parturition (giving birth), and dystocia (difficulty giving birth).

The set-up: 45 students. 2 instructors. 1 food animal lab room. 8 "phantom" cows made of metal. 8 "reproductive tracts" made of a large canvas bag with zippers. 8 stillborn baby calves (collected from nearby farms and frozen, then thawed for our convenience). 2 arms' worth of shoulder-length rectal sleeves secured with rubber bands, with latex gloves on top. 1 set of rubber overboots. 1 pair of coveralls. 253 reminders to myself to breathe through my mouth.

What we basically did was take turns putting our calf inside the canvas bag in some sort of weird position, then making each other try to feel how the calf was positioned, manipulate it into the right position, and get it out through an opening made of a metal horseshoe-shaped structure about 12 inches around.

If you're curious, "pulling calves" usually requires the use of obstetrical chains (short chains with a loop on each end) that are tied around the calf's feet so that you can pull them out. In real life, plenty of lube is involved.

It was actually a little bit interesting (once I got over the disgusting/stinky aspect). I was proud of myself for managing to correctly position a calf that was in anterior presentation with dorsopubic positioning and postured with both front legs back, to the normal birthing position, then successfully pull it with the aid of a classmate. It almost made me think that maybe, someday, if I really had to, I might sort of be able to try to help somebody else assist with a bovine delivery. Maybe. But.... no.

After the lab was over, most of us headed back to main campus for shelter medicine.

One of my friends was sitting a couple seats over from me, and I realized he hadn't been in therio lab today.

He asked me how lab was, and my most honest answer was, "Exhausting."

He seemed a little surprised by that, but then said, "Oh, I guess you didn't really have that adrenaline rush going or anything."

Yep, that makes a lot sense. I find that one's enthusiasm for yanking on chains tied to a calf's feet is markedly dimished when one knows that one's efforts will only result in the expulsion of a cold, wet calf covered in diarrhea and fetal juices with at least one broken leg and part of its skin left in the fake cow.*

*Note: In a "normal" birth (i.e. delivering a live calf from an actual cow), all of the skin stays on the calf. In a "simulated" birth that has been repeated on the same calf about 20 times in one day, not so much.

Now, if I'd left 20 minutes before the end of the lab, I couldn't have honestly made the "I smell like dead cow" statement. You might think that reaching your arm inside a fake reproductive tract and wrangling a dead baby calf would be the messy part. Nope. Being the last lab of the day, my classmates and I were the lucky ones who got to clean up, meaning disposing of the calves and hosing down everything - the canvas reproductive tracts, the metal "phantom" cows, the floors, the walls.... everything. With high-powered hoses. In a room measuring about 20x20 feet and containing 45 people, 8 phantoms, and 8 calves. Let's just say the "splashing" was significant.

Just a little taste of my day.