Two Canadian Medical Facilities END the Use of Rabbits and Pigs in Trauma Training
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Physicians Committee
January 2011

In a pediatric trauma training course in Hamilton, Ontario, trainees made an incision between live rabbits’ ribs and inserted a plastic tube into the animals’ chest cavities. In another course at Hamilton Health Sciences, up to 91 pigs per year were used in a course in which needles were inserted into the animals’ chest cavities and the sacs around their hearts. Pigs were also used in a trauma training course at Saint John Hospital in New Brunswick. Both hospitals now teach these crucial lifesaving procedures with medical simulators modeled on the human body.

PCRM urged course directors and administrators at both medical centers to adopt nonanimal training methods. We also filed a federal complaint against Hamilton Health Sciences with the Canadian Council on Animal Care before the hospital confirmed that it had replaced animal use.

These victories are part of PCRM’s highly successful United States- and Canada-wide effort to replace the use of animals in Advanced Trauma Life Support courses. With your help we have saved thousands of animals from being used in these courses and advanced medical training at dozens of facilities across North America.

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