The University of Virginia (UVA) has stopped using live animals to train surgeons
Alternatives to Animal Testing, Experimentation and Dissection - An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Physicians Committee
September 2020

While we have had many victories in our work to modernize other medical specialties like emergency medicine and pediatrics, this is our first confirmed victory specific to surgery programs.

happy Pigs

The University of Virginia (UVA) just informed the Physicians Committee that the school has stopped using live animals to train surgeons! While we have had many victories in our work to modernize other medical specialties like emergency medicine and pediatrics, this is our first confirmed victory specific to surgery programs. We expect many more to follow—until training on animals is truly a thing of the past. Thank you for making this possible!

Last December, after first attempting to communicate privately with UVA, we launched our public campaign by filing a federal complaint. The university was using pigs to teach invasive procedures to its general surgery residents. If the animals survived the procedures, they were killed following the training session.

UVA now joins the 76% (196 of 259) of surveyed U.S. general surgery programs that exclusively use human-relevant training methods, such as human-patient simulators, laparoscopic simulators, virtual reality trainers, and human cadavers.

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