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  • Clinical Techniques
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A systematic process for physical examination in preclinical research

Lab Animal volume 44, pages 89–90 (2015)Cite this article

For many people, spring is the time for an annual trip to the local veterinary practice to update pets' vaccines and ensure they receive a physical examination. For most lab animal veterinarians, it can be a reminder of the importance of assessing their own programs of veterinary care and ensuring that systematic approaches to physical exams and diagnostics are in place.

Failure to provide or document veterinary assessment and diagnostics for an animal in a study—whether a valuable transgenic mouse model, a non-human primate entered on a pharmacologic study or a calf used for a medical device implant—often results in inexplicable outcomes. Delays in assessment and diagnosis can also result in poorly matched or controlled experiments, a high degree of inter-animal variability or even unintended suffering. Lack of reproducibility and reliability of study results represents a major research challenge, wasting millions of dollars in federal funds and, most importantly, delaying the development of valuable disease treatments1. Consistency in animal assessment can enhance the reproducibility of research results, and achieving consistency requires appropriate personnel and methodology2.

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  1. USPHS Veterinary Corps and Director of Preclinical Device Review, Bethesda, MD

    Victoria Hampshire

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  1. Victoria Hampshire
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Correspondence to Victoria Hampshire.

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Hampshire, V. A systematic process for physical examination in preclinical research. Lab Anim 44, 89–90 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.706

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