Five years and ten months ago (January 2000), Marymac90 posted this paragraph:

I was looking to see if I had a recording by some male member of People's Music Network of an extremely funny song describing a proctoscopic examination, but I don't think I do. Perhaps it wasn't so much the lyrics as the ASL interpretation, but it had us all ROTFL.

I found her posting today while following links from another thread ("Where can I buy leeches & medical songs"), and I am pleased to be able to provide more details. I wrote A Note of Thanks to Dr. Rees in 1994, and you can click on the link to find a lead sheet and a MIDI file of the melody. Here are just the lyrics:

Doctor Rees (colon): I'm writing this letter
To thank you for what I have recently learned.
After our talk, I now understand better.
That would not be so, had you not been concerned.
Needing more facts, I perused the collection
The library keeps; I found quite a good book.
So now, I know much about rectal inspection,
Though rectums are places I rarely need look.

When we succeed with this change we've been trying,
When few folk will smoke, through persuasion and laws,
We'll see a change in statistics of dying,
With lung cancer being a less prominent cause.
Next behind lungs on the list as a locus
Where tumours develop, in rich lands like these,
Are rectum and colon, and so we must focus
On them, in our work of preventing disease.

Some say it helps to consume much more fibre
And rarely eat Häagen-Dazs, lamb chops, or Brie;
Those vegetarians I've met in cyber-
Space out on the Internet tend to agree.
But, for the millions who won't change their diet,
Although that would also be good for the heart,
There is a technique, if they're willing to try it,
That often ensures no malignancies start.

The flexible sigmoidoscope was invented
To enter our guts through the holes in their ends
Where feces well coloured and gases ill scented
Both exit the body. It threads through the bends
In the sigmoid, the part of the colon just over
The rectum that's shaped like an "S", and can go
Inside the left colon. It's used to discover
Conditions for which, perhaps, no symptoms show.

Polyps are growths that should not be occurring.
The ones in the bowel, when young, are benign,
But they can enlarge, and there's danger deferring
Removal, because, when they're old, they malign.
Most bowel polyps, statistics have shown us,
Are found near the sigmoid. A primary care
Physician can look for them, and, as a bonus,
Remove them, by using a scope and a snare.

Fibres bring outside light in to illumine;
An image is focused on fibres of glass.
Three millimetres wide, there's enough room in
The biopsy channel for thin tools to pass.
One has a loop on its end, which is tightened
To snare polyps' bases, then current's applied,
And heat cuts their stalks as the flesh becomes whitened.
A biopsy's made from the parts that weren't fried.

And so, Doctor Rees, thanks again for these verses
That I'd not have written without your request.
We, who must visit physicians and nurses,
Should try to keep current with what they suggest.
As it ascends, up that slippery slope in
The base of my gut, every three years or two,
When I feel the flexible sigmoidoscope in
My rectum, I'll surely be thinking of you.