Weekly Posting of the Conservative Cow Doctor

 

Another Look at Free Range Chickens

Although not apparent at a glance, veterinary medicine views chickens and dogs from different perspectives. Obviously, chickens have feathers and sleep in the chicken coop, while dogs have hair and sleep on the sofa. But there is one other astounding difference, namely how we address them from a medical perspective. Rio demonstrates my point.

Rio is a two-year-old red Border Collie who spent most of Wednesday afternoon vomiting. She presented Thursday morning slightly dehydrated, salivating, and tried to bite me every time I pressed her stomach. We started an IV, snapped a couple x-rays and diagnosed her as having a bowel obstruction. Before long we were in surgery removing a yellow mass of hair and straw from her small intestine and cecum (the equivalent of the appendix on a human.) No other abnormalities were found and her recovery from anesthesia was uneventful. Then the frustration began.

Rio vomited Friday morning so I gave her an anti-emetic. She stopped vomiting and seemed as happy as country dogs are when they are confined in a kennel in the city. I felt sorry for her and walked her several times per day because I too have never fully adapted to city life after growing up on the gumbo flats out of Ingomar. Rio refused food all Saturday. We coaxed her with every flavor with no response and with little option, we force fed her. She wasn’t any hungrier on Sunday so I snapped another x-ray and ran blood work just to be certain I hadn’t missed something. All looked normal.

I tossed and turned all Sunday night and was disappointed to see Rio exactly the same Monday morning. Thinking the worst, we returned to surgery and found a leaking segment of Rio’s small intestine in the area of the previous obstruction, so we resected this entire segment of bowel. As I write this, she is resting comfortably in our front kennels. Dr. Broyles will handle this case from here as I must drive to Helena tomorrow for legislative duties. Rio is in great hands and my parting instructions were, “I don’t care what it costs, do whatever you think Rio needs so she goes out of here alive. I’ll sort out the expense of all this when I get home.” From a purely economic perspective it was a dumb thing to say, but this is my practice, my patient, and Rio’s owner is a good friend. I don’t want to lose this one. End of Rio’s story, now to point two.

If a veterinarian is on a herd health consultation for a large poultry operation one of the most reliable diagnostic aids is the euthanasia and necropsy of a collection of both healthy and diseased members of the flock. With a complete view of the pathological process, recommendations can be made to improve the over all health of the flock. This is called “population medicine”; your main concern is the overall health of the population and the cost of sacrificing a few chickens is insignificant…to everyone but the few unlucky chickens.

From a population medicine perspective, whether Rio lives or dies has zero affect on the world of Border Collies; there will still be a couple chasing rabbits behind every barn in Montana. However, as an individual, Rio’s life matters to me, and her owner and that is the difference. Are you with me because I am going to make a leap here?

The First Lady has ceremoniously declared war on obesity. Progressives across the country have banned Happy Meals, trans-fats, and salt and are lobbying to increase alcohol and tobacco taxes. During his campaign for presidency Senator Obama declared “granny should just take a pain pill” rather than suffer the expense of a hip replacement. These are all “population medicine” proposals. If Obamacare were fully implemented, America may be healthier and rationing granny’s hip replacement might lower population costs. But just like the chosen chickens, whether you live or die, get a new hip or not, has little effect on the American population as a whole so your individual needs are the least of the concerns of the benevolent doctors of the Internal Revenue Service. We must never take a “population medicine” approach to human care and this is exactly why Obamacare must be nullified by the states.


 
 
 
 
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