Physicians Committee
April 2017
Please ask North Dakota State University president Dean L. Bresciani,
Ph.D., and Sanford Health president Paul Richard to replace the use of live
pigs in their joint Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) program.
We have provided text for you, but if you decide to write your own message,
please be polite and encouraging. Here are some talking points:
Sign an online petition.
And/Or better yet, make direct contact:
Dean L. Bresciani, Ph.D.
Office of the President
North Dakota State University
Dept 1000, PO Box 6050
Fargo, ND 581086050
701/231-7211
Earlier this month, we held a demonstration in Fargo to protest North
Dakota State University (NDSU) and Sanford Health's use of live animals for
trauma training. Physicians and local supporters joined us on a sunny
Thursday morning as we called out the facilities for refusing to utilize the
nonanimal training methods that are employed by almost every other Advanced
Trauma Life Support (ATLS) program across the country.
Join the efforts of our concerned physicians and local residents by
contacting program officials and urging them to end this educationally
inferior and unethical practice immediately.
Our goal was to facilitate replacement of the animal labs scheduled for
April 10-11. The Physicians Committee even offered to pay for the rental of
Simulab's TraumaMan System—the realistic human-body simulator used by the
vast majority of ATLS programs—if NDSU and Sanford agreed to use it to
replace animal use in the upcoming training labs.
Unfortunately, neither NDSU nor Sanford Health responded to our offer, and
the lab took place. But we intend to keep the pressure on so that future
courses don't use animals.
In NDSU and Sanford Health's course, trainees are instructed to make an
incision between a pig's ribs to insert a tube into the animal's chest
cavity and to insert a needle under the breastbone to drain fluid from the
sac surrounding the heart. At this point, the pig is killed, and
participants make an incision in the animal's throat to insert a breathing
tube.
Meanwhile, 99 percent of surveyed ATLS programs in the United States and
Canada (294 of 297)—including the two other programs in North Dakota: Altru
Health Systems and St. Alexius Medical Center—do not use animals, opting
instead for human-relevant training methods.
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
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