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Published online 7 May 2008 | 453, 140-141 (2008) | doi:10.1038/453140a
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Medical schools swap pigs for plastic
Doctors used to try out their surgical skills on animals before being allowed to work on patients. Now just a handful of US medical schools still have animal labs. Meredith Wadman asks if they've lost a vital tool.
This month sees the shutdown of the live-animal laboratory at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. The lab is currently used to train medical students, allowing them to practise on anaesthetized pigs before attempting their first incision into humans.
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While it is true that contact with living tissue is likely to aid in the training of doctors, there is no reason why this contact cannot occur on actual patients while under the supervision of experienced doctors. Aspiring surgeons should (and already do) participate in many many actual procedures before they are handed their own knife. By they time they are performing procedures on their own, they have had extensive experience with living tissue. The use of animals is superfluous and I applaud efforts eliminate their use. Thanks Ken
Thank you for the insightful article. I just wanted to comment on Larry Laughlin's comment... “Thousands of times more pigs are slaughtered and have worse lives and suffer worse demises in Iowa every day than we do in a year,� says Laughlin, who grew up on a livestock farm in the midwest. “Therefore it is hard for me to rationalize the intense concern.� This, to me, is an invalid argument - thousands of kids were killed in country X, so who cares if I kill a few in children in country Y? I do understand the difference in quantity of pigs killed, but even so, if killing a pig is not absolutely necessary, than why do it? Yes, I am vegan, and am preparing for a career in medicine. When schools adopt cheaper, better methodologies for teaching that don't involve killing lab animals, everyone wins.
I don't want my flesh to be the first live tissue my surgeon has cut into - even under supervision.
I am a surgeon and I learned my trade on patients. I experienced animal labs twice: I was asked to train medical students who performed invasive procedures on dogs; I participated in an advanced laparoscopic workshop in which we trained on pigs. I found these labs of limited use. The animal anatomy is different. The flesh has a different texture. Furthermore, every invasive procedure has a learning curve and a one time experiment in the animal lab does not obviate the need for repeated observation and mentored involvement in real procedures done upon human patients. Animals can not substitute for the experience of working with living “human� tissue.
The actual cutting and sewing I really didn't mind, I was asleep at the time. The healing was a pain though. Does anyone expect me to be self sacrificing for the sake of a pig? Anything that increases my doctor's experience and competence I am for. One area my surgeon was unprepared for was the textural cheesiness of flesh suffused with massive long term doses of steroid and how six months later it had adhered to itself in an intractable mass. This would have cost the school two pigs.
I have read with considerble interest the arguments for and against use of animals for research. I am a member of the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experimentation on Animals which is body constituted by the Government of India. Over the last four decades I have used rats, rabbits, mice goats and monkeys for my research. I feel the animal welfare activists group should think rationally and do some introspection before opposing everything.If they feel so strongly that it is cruel to use animals for research because the animals have no voice, one can extend the same argument to the plants. Plants do not produce floweres and fruits or edible parts for the selfish human beings. Who ever said that plants do not feel pain? Going one step further will the anti animal research group stop eating meat? Millions of animals are slaughtered every day for food. Yes, I do agree that animals have to be treated humanely and use them judiciously where necessary. If they argue that use of animals in research has not contributed any thing, will any one of them be prepared to undergo open heart surgery by a 'Doctor'who will declare that the patient is the first one on whom he is practising his/her skills? I wish to end by quoting a story attributed to Lord Buddha. It is told that once while Lord Buddha was touring, he passed through a village where the locals were trying to console a mother who had just lost her only child. Lord Buddha also tried his best to console her but in vain.The mother was still crying, I want my child back alive. Finally, he said yes, I will get your child back if you can get me something what I want. She immediately said, yes, what ever you ask if only you can get my child back alive. Then he told her, get me some musturd seeds from a house in your village which did not have death. The mother went round all the houses in village and could not find a single house where there has been no death. Finally, she realised that she has to accept the inevitable. On the same line, can any one of the animal wefare activists cite one drug (excepting asprin) which has been taken by any one of their relatives or friends which has not been tested in animals? Use of animals (as judiciously as possible) for research is part of development in Science and we have to accept it.