CHARLOTTESVILLE — The University of Virginia has stopped using live cats to train medical students to insert breathing tubes in newborns.
U.Va. spokesman McGregor McCance told The Daily Progress that the university’s three USDA Category A felines — Alley, Kiki and Fiddle — have been adopted out to local residents.
“We’ve received a lot of feedback from lots of people on this issue, because obviously it’s one that stirs a lot of passion,” he said.
The university didn’t say why it stopped the practice. McCance said the use of cats is still approved for training pediatrics residents.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and other critics say simulators should be used instead of live cats. Former game show host Bob Barker sent a letter to U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan in 2012 asking the university to stop the practice.
Dr. John J. Pippin, director of academic affairs with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, welcomed the decision.
“We’re delighted that U.Va. has ended the use of cats which we thought all along was indefensible — not just cruel but totally unnecessary,” Pippin said.
How long has THIS been going on? For crying out loud! There is no need to use live animals for this kind of training. Poor cats!
Did anyone else know of this atrocity? I am all for training responsible doctors to work on neonates. However, I don’t think they need to practice on cats. Is there really any excuse for medical practices to include live animals?
Love prmc, I am a member! University of Wisconsin uses cats for vision and hearing experiments. They do horrible painful experiments on their brains.
PETA is working on a effort to get them to stop.
I dropped my membership many years ago when activists began to bully people walking on the Mall because they assumed they were wearing fur.
Bullying is bullying. There is no law against wearing fur, even if I chose not to do it. To throw ink and dye on people was unconscionable. It was bullying and vandalism. I don’t eat game or veal either but I don’t insist that others follow suit.
Don’t ask why I dropped zzero population growth. Sigh.
Great post moon 🙂
I was horrified that they were inserting tubes in live cats.
Does that mean I can’t use them as oven mitts anymore?
The school is looking for volunteers to replace the cats–who’s going to be first?
@ George, can we volunteer people we don’t like?!
http://www.pcrm.org/
Dear PCRM supporter,
I am very excited to be able to share with you that Kiki, Alley, and Fiddle, the last three cats used in the University of Virginia’s (UVA) pediatrics residency program to teach endotracheal intubation, have been adopted out after eight years of abuse. PCRM learned of the change when we received documents via a state public records request.
This change is the result of PCRM’s campaign that began in September 2010 and the support of our members – including retired pediatrician Roberta Grey, M.D., who started a Change.org petition that received more than 185,000 signatures from people asking UVA to stop this practice. PCRM filed federal and state complaints against UVA’s animal use and held a demonstration outside the president’s office, and more than 200,000 supporters e-mailed UVA’s administrators encouraging the university to take this progressive step.
In this training, pediatrics residents and other trainees repeatedly forced breathing tubes down the throats of Kiki, Alley, Fiddle, and other cats. This practice can cause tracheal bruising, bleeding, scarring, severe pain, and permanent injury.
UVA now joins the 98 percent of pediatrics residency programs in the United States and Canada that view nonanimal methods as not only more humane but educationally superior.
Unfortunately, live pigs are being killed in Advanced Trauma Life Support training at Hartford Hospital. Please ask Hartford Hospital president and CEO Jeffrey Flaks to replace this use of pigs with medical simulation.
Thank you again for all of your support. Without it PCRM would not be able to secure victories like this for animals still used in medical education and for the future infant patients of today’s pediatrics residents.
Sincerely,
John Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C.
@Mom
I had to read that twice…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
From the experience of my husband as patient at UVA, it seems to me that some of those interns/doctors could sure use something to practice on other than a very ill person.