Effect of student transrectal palpation on early pregnancy loss in dairy cattle

Transrectal palpation of the reproductive tract is the most common method for pregnancy determination in cattle and is considered a veterinary skill that new veterinary medicine (DVM) graduates should perform proficiently. However, using privately owned cattle to train students can be difficult because producers may believe that transrectal palpation by inexperienced students increases the risk of pregnancy wastage compared with examination by an experienced clinician. We used a randomized field trial of 1,216 healthy Holstein and Jersey cattle in 2 commercial dairy herds to estimate the effect of veterinary student transrectal palpation on early pregnancy loss. All cattle were determined to be pregnant using transrectal ultrasonography at approximately 37 d after artificial insemination. Cattle were then allocated into 2 groups based upon their ear tag number (study group = 598; control group = 618). Cattle in the study group were immediately palpated after ultrasonography by a fourth-year veterinary student, whereas control cattle were not subject to any additional pregnancy assessment. For analysis, the student palpators were divided into 2 groups: students who had previously had formal palpation training via an elective bovine palpation class (n = 30) and students who had not had palpation training (n = 134). All cattle were reevaluated using transrectal ultrasonography approximately 70 d after artificial insemination. A total of 53 (4.36%) animals lost their pregnancy between the first and second pregnancy assessments. Of the animals that lost their pregnancy, 26 (4.35%) were study group cows and 27 (4.37%) were control cows. Of the 26 cows documented to have had pregnancy loss within the study group, 20 out of 378 (5.3%) had been palpated by students who had not taken the palpation elective and 6 out of 220 (2.7%) had been palpated by students who had completed the elective. We found no difference in pregnancy loss between student-palpated and clinician-ultrasounded cattle, supporting the safety of using privately owned animals for student bovine palpation and pregnancy diagnosis training without affecting early pregnancy loss.