Last year, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and the Wisconsin Humane Society protested the Medical College of Wisconsin's use of dogs in its physiology lab. The dogs were anesthetized, cut open so the students could observe the living system, and eventually given lethal doses of anesthesia. Well, this year, the physiology lab is using pigs. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has responded by calling on the Medical College to stop using pigs. You can see a story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel here: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=711751. It is not clear if the Humane Society has taken a position yet.
Physiology is the study of living systems, and the animal labs give medical students the opportunity to do just that. But the Physicians group and others have advocated the use of human simulators. But is the experience the same? What do you think?
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2 comments:
The medical schools at Harvard, Yale and Cornell don't use live animals for this class, yet manage to graduate some damn good doctors.
Also, of course, people who care about animals aren't going to say, "Oh, you stopped using dogs but now use pigs? That's fine." Pigs are intelligent, loving creatures who want to live their lives free from pain and interference just as much as dogs do.
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Thanks for the comment Tracy. It appears MCW has a couple of physiology simulators. I will be interested to see if in the future, MCW teaches the entire course with the simulators.
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