Medical Education US

Is there animal testing or animal dissection involved in any courses of college or Medical School? It may differ school to school, but in your experience, what was was it like? And, if there was animal testing or dissection, what types of alternatives were available?

Thank you.

[ Edited by Silverdragon on 2006/11/14 9:54 ]

After doing some internet research I came across some information that answered my question.

http://www.pcrm.org/resch/meded/ethics_med_list.html



I would still like to hear your stories though.

Interesting question. I went to one of the schools on that list, and we did have one physiology lab where they did use a dog to teach cardiac physiology principles. If I remember correctly, they did say that if we had issues with them using a dog for this purpose, we didn't have to participate.

I should not that I graduated medical school in 1996 - so they very well could have changed their educational approaches for that one lab.

[ Edited by Admin on 2006/11/14 21:14 ]

I was thinking the same thing. The policy probably has changed since you where there.

Although there are still quite a few of schools that you use animals, there are many that do not. Studies have shown that even medicines that were tested on animals and seemed to be safe for humans turned out to be harmful.

I know that animals are similar in respects to anatomy, but I find it very unethical to rob them from their lives for gain.

[ Edited by Silverdragon on 2006/11/15 21:41 ]

Yeah, I had a premed class in which we dissected cats. Frankly, it wasn't my favorite undergraduate educational experience. For some reason, I think that the cats bugged me more than the human cadavers in gross anatomy. (Well, at least after that first day of gross...)

However, we were assured by one of the TAs that all of the cats had volunteered for the body donation program.

We had a very disturbing physiology lab involving the death of a dog. But I graduated in 1986, when we still used stone tools and sat on bear skins.