Right now, pigs are being killed in emergency medicine residency training at the University of Missouri School of Medicine (MU) in Columbia. They need your help!
At MU, physician trainees are instructed to cut into the animal's throat, chest, and abdominal cavity in order to insert needles and tubes, and to practice heart surgeries. If the animals survive the invasive procedures, they are killed following the training session.
No animal deserves to suffer and die through this horrific practice! It's wrong, especially when there are superior, nonanimal training methods available.
Sign the petition below to MU staff now! Urge them to immediately replace the use of live pigs in their emergency medicine program.
Dear Dr. Delafontaine and Dr. Sampson,
I am writing to ask that you modernize and humanize medical training at the University of Missouri School of Medicine (MU) in Columbia by ending the use of animals for training emergency medicine residents. As you know, emergency medicine residents at MU are instructed to cut into live pigs to practice procedures. However, there are validated and widely available human-relevant methods that allow trainees to repeat procedures and hone their skills without harming animals.
MU's emergency medicine residency program is in a small minority in the United States and Canada, as 246 of 263 surveyed programs use only nonanimal methods, such as simulators and cadavers. In fact, all other emergency medicine residency programs in the state—including Washington University in St. Louis and MU's Kansas City campus—exclusively use human-based training methods. MU already has a state-of-the-art simulation center that offers a full range of high-fidelity mannequins and partial task trainers that could replace the use of animals.
[Your comments]
To ensure that future emergency physicians are receiving educationally and ethically superior training methods, please end the use of animals immediately.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
