Tell Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to Stop Using Sheep for Emergency Medicine Training
Action Alert from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Physicians Committee
April 2017

ACTION

Please take a minute to ask Interim School of Medicine Dean Duane Compton, Ph.D., and Emergency Medicine Residency Program Director E. Paul DeKoning, M.D., M.S., to replace the use of live animals with human-based training methods in the New Hampshire hospital’s emergency medicine residency program.

sheep

Here are some talking points:

  • Please replace the use of live animals in Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s emergency medicine residency program with simulation or other human-based methods.
  • Today, 91 percent (143 of 157) of surveyed emergency medicine residency programs in the United States teach the same procedures without using animals.
  • Other New England emergency medicine programs—such as Boston University, University of Massachusetts, Maine Medical Center in Portland, and the University of Connecticut—exclusively use human-based training methods.
  • Dartmouth-Hitchcock already has a state-of-the-art simulation center—the Patient Safety Training Center—that could replace the use of animals in the emergency medicine residency.

Sign an online petition.

And/Or better yet, make direct contact:

Duane Compton, Ph.D., Interim Dean
Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine
1 Rope Ferry Road
Hanover, NH 03755-1404
phone (877) 367-1797
fax (603) 650-1202

INFORMATION

SAMPLE LETTER

I am writing to ask that you modernize and humanize medical training at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center by ending the use of animals for training emergency medicine residents. As you know, at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, residents are instructed to cut into live sheep to practice emergency procedures, after which the animals are killed. However, there are validated and widely implemented human-based methods that allow trainees to repeat procedures and hone their skills.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock's emergency medicine residency program is in a small minority in the United States, as 143 of 157 surveyed programs use only nonanimal training methods, such as medical simulators. In fact, other regional programs--including Boston University, University of Massachusetts, Maine Medical Center in Portland, and the University of Connecticut--all exclusively use human-based training methods. Dartmouth-Hitchcock already has a state-of-the-art simulation center that could provide the resources to replace animal use.

To ensure that future emergency physicians are receiving the most educationally and ethically superior training available, please end the use of live animals.

Sincerely,
[your name and contact information]


Thank you for everything you do for animals!


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