Western Michigan University Ends Use of Animals to Train Emergency Medicine Doctors
Alternatives to Animal Testing, Experimentation and Dissection - An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

John Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C., Physicians Committee
June 2018

The training program at Western Michigan involved cutting the skin and ligament of a pig’s eye, making incisions to insert tubes and needles into the animal’s throat and chest, and splitting open the breastbone in order to access the heart.

I am excited to share some great news with you today: Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine has ended the use of pigs for training future emergency medicine doctors!

Last June, I reached out to Western Michigan officials to urge them to adopt nonanimal methods for training emergency medicine residents. I shared information on human-relevant training methods such as medical simulators, and we discussed them. At that time, the training program at Western Michigan involved cutting the skin and ligament of a pig’s eye, making incisions to insert tubes and needles into the animal’s throat and chest, and splitting open the breastbone in order to access the heart.

Then, last month, Western Michigan confirmed that they no longer use live animals.

With your support, we have convinced Western Michigan to replace animal use. Currently, 95 percent (214 of 226) of surveyed emergency medicine programs in the United States and Canada use only nonanimal methods.

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