University of Michigan Health System Still Practices on Pigs and Cats

The University of Michigan Health System prides itself on a reputation for innovation and academic excellence. Yet U of M is among only five percent of institutions still using live animals in emergency response training programs, drawing protests from campus organization the Michigan Animal Rights Society, as well as other students, experts and animal protection groups.

In the U of M Survival Flight training courses, cats get tubes repeatedly stuck down their throats for intubation practice and pigs get needles stuck in their hearts and bones. At the end of the course, the pigs don't get to survive; "most" of the cats go up for adoption.

Last year, the University of Michigan Health System stopped using live dogs in their Advanced Trauma and Life Support courses, making the switch to simulators, like the TraumaMan System. All but 11 (soon to be 10) of North America's 225 ATLS training programs have stopped using animals.

TraumaMan was good enough for the University's ATLS program, but apparently not for training Survival Flight nurses. The university says that the ability to respond to injury scenes and travel to hospitals with critically injured people "requires these procedures to be performed on live tissues."

According to PETA, all but one of those skills are the same that are taught with simulators in other courses. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture paid a visit to U of M. The USDA decided that the Survival Flight training was not in violation of the Animal Welfare Act, and rejected PETA's call for a full investigation.

Neither PETA nor the Michigan Animal Rights Society are giving up. They've continued to speak out against the use of animals for Survival Flight training. At the State of the University address in late October, they confronted University President Mary Sue Coleman about the issue. President Coleman stuck to the script and reiterated the claim that cutting into live animals is the only way to give trainees the true experience.

Cindy Tait, President of the Center for Healthcare Education and one of the developers of the most prominent pediatric life support training course in the country, says that's "nonsense."

In a letter to the editor, Tait writes "animals do not represent the correct anatomy that nurses will actually be practicing on, anesthetized animals do not respond to medical treatments the way live humans or human simulators do, and animal laboratories do not allow trainees to repeat procedures until they are proficient."

Tait also points out that the Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association sponsors a training course called the Transport Nurse Advanced Trauma Courses (basically the same thing as U of M's Survival Flight training) which successfully used simulators instead of animals in 29 out of 30 courses offered this year. If it's good enough for the national association representing these nurses, it should be good enough for the University of Michigan.

Howard Rush, the veterinarian who oversees the University's laboratory animals, said they had "nothing to be ashamed of." Joseph Varilone, student and Michigan Animal Rights Society representative, begged to differ. "I certainly can believe that Rush and the university that pays his salary do not feel any shame for harming animals, but that is quite different than actually having nothing to be ashamed of."

As one of U of M's alumni, I couldn't agree more. A school that proclaims being "the leaders and best" shouldn't be using outdated, inhumane animal methods for medical training. Tell the University of Michigan to leave cats and pigs out of their Survival Flight courses.

Photo credit: calamity_sal