Animal behaviour

“We can't get it down,” shouted the doctors to be. “Try once more--we've got to intubate quickly,” yelled the surgeon in response. I remember the scene from 1997 as if it occurred last week--my first time in the emergency room; my first patient. At the time I thought little of the fact that this patient was four legged--a pig to be exact.

Now, however, something between “enlightening discussion” and “heated debate” is occurring over the use of animals for teaching clinical skills in medical school courses. The question is simple: do the educational benefits of operating on animals as part of medical training outweigh the downside--the loss of animals' lives? The query may be simple, but the answer is complex.

In Charlottesville, the home of the University of Virginia, this issue rose to prominence recently. The course in question is a two day life saving techniques laboratory offered as part of the third year surgical clerkship in the medical school. It uses dogs as patients. In early February, Arthur Garson Jr, dean of the School of Medicine, and R Edward Howell, chief executive officer of the university's Medical Center, issued a statement promising that the university would “cease using dogs in medical education and training, [though] this decision does not preclude the use of animals, other than dogs, for teaching specific procedures.”