Physicians group condemns use of live animals for surgical training

Editor's Note

An August 6 report in MedPage Today details how the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is pushing to end the practice of using live animals for physiology training.

According to the article, some surgical residencies use live animals (usually pigs) as practice patients. In contrast, only 3% of emergency medicine residencies use live animals, while pediatric residencies in the US and Canada have abandoned the practice entirely.

As detailed in the article, PCRM has identified 60 surgical residency programs that use live animals. The group’s latest efforts have been focused on Oregon Health & Science University's (OHSU) surgical residency program. OHSU told MedPage Today in a statement that it "only uses animal models in its surgical training program when non-animal methods are inadequate or too dangerous for human participants; all animals are anesthetized and under the care of veterinarians during surgical training."

OHSU also cites the inadequacy of current technology to replicate complex surgeries, MedPage reports.

However, PCRM contends that advances in simulation technology make animal use unnecessary. "A substantial body of scientific evidence shows that simulators and cadavers are equivalent or superior to animals when teaching surgical skills," reads a letter from the group to OHSU. PCRM also offered to pay for a demonstration of EnvivoPC, a perfused cadaver model from Maximum Fidelity Surgical Simulations.

According to the article, PCRM has helped more than 120 programs move away from using animals for training.