Okay, first one to turn this thread into an Anti-Vivisection Hijack gets fifty lashes with a licorice whip for Not Paying Attention. I’m not here to talk about the pros and cons of vivisection–I just want a simple question answered.
In this thread Frist adopted cats for medical experiments, I want to know how common it is for medical students to go and find their own (living) animals to experiment on at their leisure, either at the animal shelter or through ads in the paper or whatever.
I know a lot of former medical students and I have never heard of anything remotely like this. Most medical students are too busy with their classwork to find much time for outside activities. But the fact that I never heard of someting doesn’t mean it never happened. And Senator Frist is supposed to be a very unusual person.
IANADyet, but have been a med student on and off for almost 10 years (that’s 7 graduating years worth) and had never even heard a rumor of this. You get almost more than you can handle dissecting human cadavers and you get learn on the wards on living humans (and, I’ve heard, anesthatized animals some times- things like intubating), but I’ve not heard of actually getting animals to practice on.
Logistically it would be difficult. Most anatomy instructors and schools are very strict about use of dissection tables and it would be pretty messy without embalming them first (which I’d imagine is difficult if you haven’t been taught how).
So, FWIW, it may happen I guess, but it’s not common.
see my reply in the pit. We operated on lots of living pigs in med school. And surgical residents did tons of cases on dogs and pigs. I know of no alternative to perfecting one’s technique, especially for procedures that don’t get done often on people.
But no, we didn’t have to hunt up our own animals. If the school would or could not make them available, I can see a case for finding your own, if you were committed to being a competent surgeon.
I’ve never heard of med students going to the pound to get animals on their own.
However, in Ontario there is the much-hated practice of “pound releases” or “pound seizures” which has been the center of controversy. As far as I’m aware, it has had nothing to do with medical students, but rather registered research facilities could buy animals that had not been claimed after 72 hours. This is mandated by Ontario’s Animals for Research Act (1971). Alberta has similar legislations (unless it’s been repealed since the last time I read about it.)
Many, many groups have been fighting this and trying to force a ban on pound sezures. Those opposed to the use of pound animals for research include:
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
World Health Organization
Council of Europe
International Council of Organizations for the Medical Sciences
As a result of pressure, since the early 1990s experiments on “random-source” animals (as our seized house pets are called) has bee gradually decreasing with reports estimating it’s somewhere between 25% and 50% less.
I don’t know about U.S. jurisitictions, but pound seizures may be similarlry mandated on a state by state basis.
Currently, groups here are lobbying the provincial government to ban all pound seizures, especially after a nasty, well-publicised seizure of a golden retreiver that belonged to a family with children. The resreach facility euthanized the dog right away because it was too old to survive the experiements.
Quick addendum my first Google search was on “pound seizures Ontario”, I did a search for “pound seizures U.S.A.” and there were many results.
Fourteen states currently prohibit the release of impounded animals to research facilities:
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Vermont
West Virginia
Release of animals to research facilities is required in:
District of Columbia
Iowa
Minnesota
Oklahoma (by pounds only)
South Dakota
Utah
Research releases are allowed in the following states, at the discretion of the pounds or shelters:
Arizona
California
Michigan
North Carolina
Ohio
Tennessee
Washington
Wisconsin
A bunch states are missing, so I have no clue. New Mexico did a study and found that pound seizures errode public confidence in animal shleters and have adversely negative effects on shelter staff.
Again, these animals are released to registered facilities for experimental purposes. Students don’t go and buy their own. Whether or not any of these animals end up in a biology class, I don’t know.
When I was in Anatomy/Physiology in college we had to dissect
different animal parts and we had to dissect a cat. All of these parts were bought by the college from a medical supply facility.
The parts and the cats were preserved in a formaldehyde solution. The cats arrived to the lab in bulk form, 50 to a bag.
At which point we picked out our favorite color, long versus short hair, male vs female, etc. Some students even named their cats.
The cats were then skinned and meticulously dissected, one body system at a time over the next few months. At the end of the class the cats were tagged and went back into the solution until the next time we studied them. Under no circumstances does a medical or nursing student have to get thier own cat. At least not in this country. Besides the cats are tested for any disease prior to being handled by humans.
And as morbid as this may sound, Iv’e already made arrangements to donate my body to medical science rather than be buried or cremated.
Up until quite recently, it used to be common for our pounds to sell unhoused dogs (I’m not sure about cats) to our universities for research for a token (a few cents per carcass) fee.
Am I right in assuming that most people in the US are either buried or cremated and that the number who donate their bodies to science would be quite small relative to the number of medical students (and other scientists) needing to practise their skills on cadavers?
As a slight aside, when my former partner wanted to donate his body for scientific research, we were both quite surprised at the list of things which exclude a person from donation (which makes perfect sense when you consider the risk of infection to the person doing the dissection).
How was/is it done? Are the animals euthanized before the surgery? If it was done privately (not through the school) how was the anesthesia (if live surgery) or euthanasia (if not) performed? Did one do it in the living room or bathroom or sneak into school labs?
I adopted a cat from the North Texas Humane Society on the Saturday before 9/11, and I had to sign an agreement that I would not use the cat for experiments. I don’t know if it’s the law in Texas, or just the way the NTHS wants to run things. Basically, I had to agree to keep the cat as a companion animal and not as anything else, and if I was unable to care for her, I was to return her to the NTHS.
During a trauma life support course, I once practiced emergency surgical techniques on an anesthesized dog. One needed to be an MD to take this course. No vivisection occurred in medical school. In Grade 13 biology we dissected dead cats.
