More Medical Centers End Animal Use
Alternatives to Animal Testing, Experimentation and Dissection - An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Physicians Committee
August 2015

Hot on the heels of our recent Hartford Hospital win, I am very excited to share with you two more victories that your support helped make possible! We recently received confirmation that the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston and the University of Utah have ended the use of animals in medical training programs! Not only are these great wins for the animals used to teach emergency procedures—but also for doctors and their patients who will benefit from modern, human-based training methods.

Last week, the director of the UTMB Advanced Trauma Life Support program notified us that the medical school has ended the use of goats and switched to medical simulation devices! In addition to this victory, the University of Utah has terminated its use of kittens and rabbits to teach emergency procedures to pediatricians, other physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists.

These are remarkable and hard-fought victories, and we couldn't have done it without you.

But there is still more work to be done. Please help us end the use of animals in all pediatrics residency programs! See Ask Laval University to End the Use of Piglets in its Pediatrics Residency Program.

Today, the only two facilities in the United States and Canada that continue using animals for pediatrics residency training are Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. These programs use live animals—including cats—to teach invasive procedural skills.

Meanwhile, 99 percent of the 217 surveyed facilities use only nonanimal methods for teaching pediatrics residents. And earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Defense ended the use of animals in its pediatrics residency programs in favor of modern medical simulation. In light of these facts, it could not be clearer that the current standard for training pediatricians does not involve the use of animals.

Return to Alternatives to Animal Testing, Experimentation and Dissection