Cats Tormented and Pigs Stabbed in the Heart at University of Michigan

FROM  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

ACTION

Tell University of Michigan (UM) to END the cruel treatment of cats and pigs to train nurses in Survival Flight courses. UM already uses state-of-the-art human-patient simulators to teach the same skills in other courses for nurses and physicians.

Sign an online petition

And/Or make direct contact:

Joseph Kolars, Mark Lowell, Howard Rush
UMHS - Survival Flight
B1 352 TC-5307
1500 East Medical Center Drive
Ann Arbor MI 48109
phone (734) 936-6045
email

INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

Documents recently obtained by PETA reveal that the University of Michigan's (UM) Survival Flight course for nurses has been tormenting live cats and pigs in cruel and deadly medical-training exercises, even though UM already uses state-of-the-art human-patient simulators to teach the same skills in other courses for nurses and physicians.

Cats—who in the past have been purchased by UM from animal shelters—have a hard plastic tube repeatedly forced down their delicate windpipes for intubation training and are frequently killed after the procedure. Pigs have holes cut into their limbs, throats, and chests and have needles stabbed into their bones and hearts for trauma training exercises before they are killed.

Studies by leading medical experts have repeatedly found that in addition to saving animals, the use of simulators is superior to the use of animal labs for preparing trainees to perform the lifesaving skills taught in UM's Survival Flight course. The Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association, which is the professional organization representing flight nurses, endorses the use of simulators to teach these skills as well.

Please take a minute of your time to contact university officials and respectfully ask them to immediately replace the use of cats and pigs for these cruel training exercises with non-animal methods such as the modern human-patient simulators that are already in use at UM.

Thank you for everything you do for animals!