The Yorkshire Vet: Teaching next generation of vets there is more than one way to treat a cow

That was a Saturday. On the Monday, I headed north to my first job. At last, I’d be able to make my own diagnoses, choose what drugs to put in which syringes and cure patients on my own. Most exciting was the chance to fill up my own car boot with veterinary paraphernalia. I’d imagined this countless times during long hours on call with vets whilst waiting for a call to come in to calve a cow or replace a prolapse. My first job was to visit a cow with “Summer Mastitis”. This is a nasty condition, usually affecting cows in the weeks before they give birth. Fetid, cottage cheese-like infection accumulates in the udder and makes the mum-to-be very poorly. Usually, her temperature is very high and the udder becomes swollen like a water melon; we’d been taught that cases respond well to antibiotics. But which one would be best? I asked myself en route to the farm. I remember pulling over in a layby to study my books. I wanted my first ever treatment to be the most suitable. I knew I needed to avoid potentiated sulphonamides- these drugs did not work well in the presence of pus (I’d just answered an exam question about that). Penicillin and streptomycin in combination worked synergistically against the bacterium involved in this disease. I opted for that. A basic drug but, according to my notes, perfect for this situation. I was prepared.

Sure enough, the cow had a massively swollen udder with custard-like contents and a sky-high temperature. I reached for some anti-inflammatories too. Should I leave a second dose for the farmer to administer tomorrow along with the course of antibiotics? It was a simple case (perfect for a newly qualified vet) but there were lots of decisions to make.

I returned to the practice, happy that it had gone well and certain I’d given the cow the best chance of recovery. I went through my actions with a senior vet, who nodded reassuringly. “I’d have probably used Synulox,” he added- it was a different antibiotic! “I find it usually works a bit better than Pen-Strep.” Wise words which I lodged in my brain for next time. Fortunately, the cow made a complete recovery, which shows that there can be several ways of handling any clinical scenario. Maybe that’s the advice I need to give to the graduands at the weekend? There’s more than one way to manage every case, so don’t be stuck to a practice clinical protocol!