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Raymond Anchan, MD, PhD, Jim Greenberg, MD, and Susan Stober, RDMS, have never examined a patient quite like 18-year-old Mandy, who is having trouble getting pregnant.
Mandy is a mandrill—a species of monkey related to the baboon—who lives at the Franklin Park Zoo. Following failed attempts at breeding the zoo’s only female mandrill, Eric Baitchman, DVM, associate veterinarian for Zoo New England (which operates the Franklin Park Zoo), sought the expertise of Greenberg in conducting a reproductive evaluation of Mandy, who has a history of an ovarian cyst.
Greenberg, a physician in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, lined up Anchan, a reproductive endocrinology fellow, and Stober, a sonologist assistant, to join him in assessing Mandy with Baitchman last month.
“We combined our expertise with human reproduction and the zoo’s expertise with animals to understand what was happening with Mandy,” Greenberg said. “Using Susan’s ultrasound skills, we were able to determine what was normal and what wasn’t.”
Anchan said that the mandrill’s anatomy is similar to a human’s. “Besides some significant boney structure differences with respect to pelvic bone angles and pelvic outlet size, much of the primate anatomy is comparable,” he said.
The 15-minute exam, which took place in one of the zoo’s operating rooms, went smoothly. “It was great,” Stober said. “We examined the patient and then discussed a few options for the zoo to consider.”
The lab results are pending, and the zoo also will examine the male mandrill.
“The contribution of time and expertise from the BWH doctors and technologist was invaluable to us,” Baitchman said. “Their involvement has allowed us to have access to a level of medicine and diagnostics that otherwise would not be available to us at the zoo.”
Stober, Anchan and Greenberg enjoyed working with the zoo. “This was a unique opportunity to try something novel and do a small part as a patron of the zoological parks,” Anchan said.
Greenberg agreed. He has been involved personally with the zoo for about five years and supports its mission of educating the Boston community about the value of wildlife conservation and the importance of protecting the Earth’s natural resources.
“I believe the zoo has a wonderful mission—it aims to educate the next generation of children so that the animals in our zoos will not be the last of their species,” Greenberg said.