VICTORY: University Of Michigan To Use Simulators, Not Dogs. In place of dogs to practice surgery in Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) classes, students will “use only simulated models,” according to an UM announcement. Letters, calls, emails… have impact! Six weeks after Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine alerts us to cruel and old-fashioned dog labs in University of Michigan trauma training courses, UM upgrades to human-focused models like TraumaMan System, Synman, etc. Human-applicable training imparts knowledge related to human patient care. And no one suffers or dies.

Unwarranted: Animal Experiments As Training
Interactive Simulators Work Better. Computerized simulators emulate human anatomy and key facets of patient care. Animal-free teaching tools are more cost effective and facilitate learning about human health and safety. Advanced systems now have layers of life-like skin, fat, and muscle. Some simulate bleeding, and with the advent of AI programming, can answer questions in staged surgical settings. Simulators, unlike dogs or pigs, allow students to learn at their own pace and repeat procedures as many times as necessary. Still, schools such as University Of Michigan used dogs for trauma training. Before its switch to human-relevant models, UM bought shelter animals from disreputable Class B dealers like R&R Research to kill them in crude training drills. So-called “pound seizure” dogs of unknown origin are usually former companion animals. Koda, a surrendered pet malamute sold to UM, died like the others: cut open, practiced on, discarded.

Students who gain knowledge in an animal lab must unlearn much of it down the road. Incision pressure varies between dogs and humans. Size, location, texture and elasticity of internal organs are also vastly in incongruous. In fact, each species is so diverse in terms of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and genetics that animal studies have endangered humans with misleading information. A New England Journal of Medicine article highlights the “very detailed feedback and more subtle measurement of trainee performance” gained from virtual reality simulators. The article concludes that inanimate models are safe, reproducible, portable and readily available.