Massachusetts General Hospital to Use and then Kill Sheep in Trauma Training: What you Can do to Stop It

Received this from PCRM, a great group dedicated to ending vivisection.  Please read below for more information.  Pretty easy to act.

By the way, you’ll see the TraumaMan System mentioned below.  This is a surgical simulation tool that provides an alternative to animal testing or vivisection.  You can learn more about this incredible animal testing alternative at http://www.simulab.com/home-traumaman-system

Email received:

On Monday and Tuesday, live sheep are scheduled to be used and then killed in a trauma training course at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. We need your help to end this unnecessary and cruel practice.

Mass General may be one of the nation’s best hospitals, but it is woefully behind the times when it comes to teaching Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS). Across the nation, more than 90 percent of ATLS courses are taught using only human-based simulators, which Mass General currently owns.

Please call, e-mail, or write a letter to Massachusetts General Hospital president Peter L. Slavin, M.D., and politely ask him to end animal use in the institution’s ATLS program. Then forward this message to your friends who care about animals and effective medical education. Being polite is the most effective way to help these animals. 

Peter L. Slavin, M.D.

President

Massachusetts General Hospital

55 Fruit St.

Boston, MA 02114

Tel: 617-724-9300

E-mail: pslavin (at) partners.org

Mass General owns the American College of Surgeons-approved simulator known as the TraumaMan System. The hospital uses the simulator to teach ATLS surgical skills to medical students while using live sheep to teach the very same procedures to practicing physicians.

On May 14, PCRM filed a formal request with Mass General’s Subcommittee on Research Animal Care asking that it deny the use of animals in the hospital’s ATLS program.

The letter cites an ongoing survey by PCRM, which has so far received responses from 201 ATLS programs in the United States and Canada. The survey has found that 187 of those programs (more than 90 percent) exclusively use nonanimal models for instruction. The vast majority of those 187 programs exclusively use the TraumaMan System.

Learn more about the TraumaMan System (http://www.simulab.com/home-traumaman-system). If you have any questions, please contact me at rmerkley (at) pcrm.org. Thanks so much for your help!

Best regards,

Ryan Merkley

Manager of Humane Education Programs