Physicians Committee
September 2016
Both universities have a state-of-the-art simulation center that could provide the resources to replace the use of animals. Eighty-eight percent of U.S. emergency medicine residency programs surveyed by the Physicians Committee use only nonanimal, human-based education methods.
Hundreds of media outlets covered the Physicians Committee’s recent federal complaints against the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for using live animals in emergency medicine training.
“After you practice on a pig, when you go to humans, you have to change it all around,” the Physicians Committee’s John Pippin, M.D., told the Associated Press. “Compared to the use of a human cadaver or compared to the use of simulators, it's not as good.”
The Animal Welfare Act’s implementing regulations “require that a principal investigator—including course instructors—consider alternatives to procedures that may cause more than momentary or slight pain or distress to any animal used for research purposes.”
Both universities have a state-of-the-art simulation center that could provide the resources to replace the use of animals. Eighty-eight percent of U.S. emergency medicine residency programs surveyed by the Physicians Committee use only nonanimal, human-based education methods.
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