I’m surprised that wouldn’t be an overstepping of their boundaries, unless they were assisting and not actually performing the procedure, and why wouldn’t a veterinarian know how to do that? I’m curious, based on this video that is going viral.
A chimpanzee is anatomically similar to a human. An OBGYN should have no problem doing that procedure on a chimp, gorilla, or orangutan.
Why did they do it instead of a vet? Perhaps an experienced zoo vet wasn’t available in the area. Vets were involved in the procedure.
Doing a C-section on a chimp isn’t necessarily something most vets would have experience doing, especially if there was a significant problem. According to the reporting, a chimp hadn’t been born at that zoo for 12 years.
According to local news reports, the two OB/GYNs were asked by the Zoo’s medical staff to perform the procedure. This would indicate that the vets employed by the Zoo were not trained (or confident) to undertake a c-section.
What boundaries would that be?
How were they able to do it? A #10 scalpel should do the trick. (+ forceps, retractors, hemostats, etc.)
But wouldn’t that be overstepping the boundaries of their licenses, unless they got special permission?
ETA: ninja’ed …
I’m not the OP, but I suspect the “boundaries” they’re thinking of are licensing, liability insurance, and when you get right down to it, how confident a human doc really would be that they’ll recognize the necessary landmarks once they cut into a chimp and survey the different landscape in there. How different? Human doc has only a general idea of how different.
OTOH, a C-section is not the most delicate or advanced of surgical procedures, and while nobody likes to lose either the fetus or the mother, having that happen to a chimp is far better than having it happen to a human. Somebody who does 3 human C-sections per workday and has done so for years is probably safer than somebody who’s read about them recently and did a rhinocerous C-section last year.
A point not clear to me is how much advance study of books & pics & scans the MDs had a chance to do before cutting into the chimp. Armed with good 3D pix there may have been very little opportunity for them to be surprised once the cutting started.
Nor do I (we?) know how much a zoo vet was standing alongside watching & kibitzing as necessary.
This, I suspect, was a major part of it. Even if the zoo’s vets have decades of experience treating the zoo’s chimpanzees, they likely have never had to handle a c-section on one of them.
Do medical licenses include language about not being allowed to perform surgery on animals?
Veterinarians are the ultimate generalists of the medical world. They do every kind of procedure, on every animal species except one. On the other hand, you’ve got doctors who specialize in this exact procedure, on the species most closely related to chimpanzees. Sure, a chimp uterus is going to be a little different from a human uterus, but it’ll be a lot more like a human uterus than it is like a chimp liver, or spleen, or duodenum, and certainly more like a human uterus than like a horse liver, or a dog spleen, or a parrot duodenum.
ETA: @Darren_Garrison 2 posts up.
I think I’d look at the regs from the other direction.
There probably is a statute on animal protection that says something like “No one but a veterinarian licensed under Section 123.456c of this code shall perform surgery upon an animal.” Your standard MD almost certainly has no such license. Theirs was instead issued under Section 321.789b of the Health and Professions code.
Obviously the likely legal get-around is having a vet in attendance to “supervise” the work on the chimp done by the MDs. Likewise I’d assume they have the veterinary equivalent of an anesthesiologist doing that part.
This article indicates that the two OB/GYNs in question have been collaborating with the zoo’s medical team on great ape pregnancies for some time, and had previously performed a c-section for one of the zoo’s orangutans:
I have a feeling that chimps, with pelves more like bipedal humans than quadrupedal everything-else-at-the-zoo, are going to be more like what a human OB is accustomed to than what a large animal vet is accustomed to.
Vets would be on-hand to administer GA, vitals, and intervene in an emergency. Sounds like the chimp is getting better care than lots of women in the US.
Also, there’s plenty of cross-over that happens when there is necessity.
My vet said that when our state was doing massive COVID vaccines, and the demand well-outstripped the ability to supply (to administer, more to the point), vets and vet techs were being solicited to administer shots.
Many of the shots in Indiana were not given by nurses-- I have no idea what percentage, but here, the National Guard was “deployed” (it was the “two weeks” of many units in 2021). Medical units were giving the injections, and any person with training to give a shot was doing it, while other techs were doing things like monitoring for reactions, or down the road at the COVID test site.
The people providing power and commo to the areas were units that did those things-- transport units were deployed to transport, and the security and public service/directions/etc. were infantry, and other units that did other things. Plus, some units were deployed to support the first-line troops.
It was a fine time to be in the Guard. The kind of time one chooses the Guard over the Reserves for.
Calling @Qadgop_the_Mercotan , @DSeid , and @Jackmannii for a better answer.
I have a friend who is a vet. He mainly deals with dogs and cats, but as you say… his knowledge extends to birds and reptiles, and even fish.
I read that and imagined the OP was thinking that another chimp should have performed the C-section. Does the Prime Directive say that humans aren’t allowed to interfere?
“Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a large animal veterinarian!”
Well you know who the c-section was named after.
I chuckled upon seeing that. but on a more serious note, Metallica singer James Hetfield, who was raised Christian Scientist, has said, “If a deer knew how to fix a broken leg, it would.”
All I’m going to say is that, given the unpredictable temperament of adult chimpanzees, you’d want to make sure the anesthesiologist was on the ball.