Nevermind...I've scanned the whole letter for you guys to read. Any errors/typos are the fault of my scanner's text recognition.
Dear MCW Medical Student,
As an M.D./Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia (UVA) I was disappointed to leam recently that the
Medical College of Wisconsin continues to use 60 live dogs per year in an Ml physiology lab, at the end of which
the dogs are killed. As recently as 3 years ago, medical students at UVA were offered a lab as part of the surgery
clerkship which required the euthanasia of nearly 100 beagles each year. In our case, the lab was designed to
demonstrate, ironically enough, life-saving techniques.
Undoubtedly, many of you are uncomfortable with the idea of sacrificing animals in such a manner. Many
of my own classmates were reluctant to express their obrjections for fear of being singled out or possibly having
their actions adversely affect their grade. Some of these students decided to just grin and bear it, believing the lab
to be a "rite of passage" of sorts. Other students ran out of the lab in tears, unable to bear the sight of anesthetized
beagles prepared for vivisection. Given that this was the first experience most students have with surgery, I
couldn't help but think that it would be better to show students how doctors can save lives rather than take
lives. After this series of events, I decided that something had to be done to change the lab. I began by learning as
much as I could about these types of labs around the country. What I discovered shocked me.
A report in the journal Academic Medicine (reference) indicated that the number of U.S. medical schools
that continue to use live animals in education has decreased steadily (1). In 1985, 73 of schools used live
animals, in 1994 that number dropped to 62, and in 2001 only 32 of schools continued to do so. Apparently
UVA had been continuing a teaching method which had long since been eliminated at most other schools. The
most recent data (according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) now indicates that only 16 of
the 126 allopathic medical schools in the U.S. continue to use live animals as part of their M1-M4 curricula. Even
larger is the number of U.S. medical schoolsmore than 90 percentthat no longer use live animals for
physiology instruction. This makes MCW part of a small (and shrinking) minority.
There exist many alternatives to using live animals for teaching purposes. It might seem obvious, but the
most important of these are real patients themselves. At my school, surgeons are very willing to bring first and
second year students into the O.R. to demonstrate physiological principles and surgical techniques first-hand.
Using animals for these purposes is a step backwards since their anatomy, physiology, and pharmacologic
responses to drugs are vastly different from those of humans.
The Human Patient Simulator (HPS) from Medical Education Technologies, Inc (METI) is another very
popular alternative used at Harvard, Baylor, UCLA, and other top ranked schools. MCW currently owns four
HPS units, more than enough to replace the use of live dogs. HPS is a programmable and interactive simulator
that accurately mirrors human responses to a variety of physiological situations, including intravenous
administration of over 55 drugs. HPS facilitates repetition and progressive learning in safe but true-to-life
scenarios, which is important for optimal physiology education and not possible using live animals. Other options
include class and small-group case discussions, interactive computer-based methods such as virtual reality
programs, and hands-on mentorship opportunities.
A search of the medical literature revealed many studies over the past several years which
demonstrate that students taught using human-based teaching methods perform as well or better than
those students taught with animal-based models.
I presented all of this information at a Curriculum Committee meeting. Many of the students and faculty
were as surprised as I was at what I had found. Discussions followed over the next few weeks and I later
presented my arguments to the lab instructor and the dean of the medical school. An ad hoc committee was
formed to investigate the issue further. In February 2004 the committee corroborated many of my findings and
decided that it was no longer justified to use dogs for such a lab. They also recommended that the lab should be
revamped to instead use more modem and accurate teaching tools. Since November 2004, students at UVA
have been learning life-saving techniques using the HPS. Overall, the course has received very favorable
reviews from students. In fact, over the past two years no one seems to remember that an animal lab ever existed
at our school.
It has been exciting to see such progress made so quickly at my school, and I'm certain that the same can
happen at MCW. I would encourage each of you to discuss this issue with your professors and
administrators. I think you will find support for the elimination of live animal use, not only by many of your
classmates, but also by residents, attendings, staff members, as well as the community in general. The alternatives
are already available at MCW, will save the medical school thousands of dollars in the long-run, and will prevent
the needless suffering and death of 60 dogs each year. Most importantly, these changes will help you become
outstanding physicians who will have been trained using the most effective, accurate, and ethically acceptable
methods available to medical schools today.
Should you have any questions or concerns about anything I've mentioned, please do not hesitate to
contact me. I'm happy to share with you the wealth of information I've accumulated on this issue over the past
four years. I also encourage you to contact the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to ask how
they might help with this effort.
Sincerely,
Rooshin Dalal
You're about the 6th person who's asked about that. We're trying to get a lunch meeting going on the 28th if the speaker gets back to me soon. Sorry, this is what happens when a major procrastinator gets elected into a position of authority. 😳 I promise we'll do more next semester.
