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UT medical program accused of cruelty

Emily Johnson, Associate News Editor

Using live pigs in a medical teaching program at the University of Toledo has brought about a complaint by a nonprofit organization.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed the complaint against the UT emergency medicine residency program on Nov. 3.

PCRM said UT is in violation of the Animal Welfare Act by using live pigs to teach emergency medical training procedures to the emergency medicine residents when there are alternative methods they could use instead. Most of the procedures involve inserting needles and breathing tubes into the animals.

John J. Pippin, director of academic affairs for PCRM, said he sent letters to the university asking them to reconsider their program before the committee filed the complaint.

However, Kristopher Brickman, chair of emergency medicine and medical director of the emergency department, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture audited the program in August prior to the complaint and it was found to be in compliance.

“We’ve had the USDA come in,” Brickman said. “We’ve been reviewed by numerous accreditation agencies who have reviewed all of our procedures, have reviewed all of our facilities and we’ve always gotten a seal of approval.”

He also explained that the emergency medical residency program uses four Yorkshire pigs a year for teaching purposes, and that none of them have died because of any complications related to the procedures. He said they are “humanely sacrificed,” or put down as a dog would be, after the procedures are done. He said the pigs do not feel any pain.

According to Pippin, he tried to establish correspondence in July 2013 with a letter to the dean of the UT residency program. After receiving no response, he said he sent letters out to other UT personnel, including Jeffery Gold, the graduate medicine dean at the time. He also sent a letter in March 2014 to former UT President Lloyd Jacobs.

“We’ve certainly done our due diligence in trying to resolve this by going up the chain of command,” Pippin said, “It’s only because that has failed that we are now making this a public effort.”

Pippin said because the university did not respond to PCRM, they filed the complaint to Elizabeth Goldentyer, the regional director of the Eastern Region of the USDA and of the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service.

According to Pippin, Goldentyer reviewed the complaint and an investigation was launched.

If UT had been in violation of the AWA, it could have faced up to $10,000 per violation, according to the USDA website, but UT was found to be in compliance.

According to Strunk, the USDA did return to the university after the complaint was filed in early November.

“The USDA has returned since the complaint was filed and again found our program to be in full compliance,” Strunk said.

Despite this, Pippin said UT is in violation because they are “using improper or outdated or cruel and ineffective methods in teaching and training medicine.” He said there are other methods available for teaching these procedures to residents.

Some of these alternate methods include “interactive and sometimes programmable simulators,” according to Pippin.

“[They] give you much more reliable representation of human anatomy for this kind of training,” Pippin said.

Pippin thinks UT’s simulation lab is not being fully utilized, as the procedures done with the pigs can also be done via simulation.

“The trauma programs all use simulators like TraumaMan and some simulators from a company named Simulab and they get excellent results,” Pippin said.

Pippin added that he feels using the “anatomically correct human simulators” is a more effective source of learning than using live animals.

The PCRM sent documents to the university that explain techniques other programs are using to train their emergency medicine residents, according to Pippin.

“We’ve surveyed 132 emergency medical programs and found that 114, which is 86 percent, are not using animals.” Pippin said, “We’ve sent [UT] abundant references on how using simulation and other, more human relevant teaching methods is better than killing animals.”

According to Jon Strunk, Assistant Vice President of University Communications, “UT reviewed alternatives for training on these high-risk lifesaving procedures and the alternatives were properly discussed with the University’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.”

In order to use animals instead of simulations on their own, Brickman submitted a report explaining why the use of animals over simulations is required.

“Animals, in my estimation, are a better utilization for the procedures that we need to teach when we’re trying to train emergency medicine physicians and how to do emergency procedures,” he said.

While Brickman thinks the use of animals for teaching procedures is better than simulation, he said the emergency medicine training physician program still uses the new simulation center “probably more than any other department does here at this institution.”

Brickman said the only reason the university is still using pigs is because they are used to teach “specific procedures teaching emergency medicine personnel, who have to act within seconds or patients will die.”

Certain procedures can be more effectively taught using animals because they must be done very quickly, but most procedures are taught via the simulation lab, according to Brickman.

PCRM said that the complaint will not lead to a lawsuit, however, they will send signed petitions to the university to consider alternative methods to using animals in medical teaching.

UT released a statement that it “takes very seriously its responsibility for assuring the proper care and use of animals in research and training.”

Brickman and Strunk agree that the university will change their teaching methods for those procedures when there are adequate simulations for them.

“We’re still looking for new opportunities,” Brickman said. “What I’m saying today might not apply a year from now. They may come up with a model … that will allow me to do things clearly to the same level that I can in an animal model, and we’ll be happy to change.”

However, Brickman said he is currently not aware of any technology that can do this.

“What I’ve decided, is that we’re going to do what we feel is in the best interest of our educational mission, as long as we are not in violation of any rules or regulations that we have to function by,” Brickman said.

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Comments

  • dijkstrajwe

    The USDA is not a medical authority. It may inspect the facilities and issue a statement of compliance, but it cannot judge the quality of a medical training program. UT belongs to a rapidly diminishing minority of medical training programs whose teaching methods have not kept up with the times. Frequently this is a manifestation of the age of the tenured staff, in other cases it is a self-defeating sense of misplaced pride. I strongly urge the staff to visit facilities who have changed to the modern teaching methods. By learning from others who have spearheaded new developments is how we always continue to improve our medical knowledge and expertise.

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