***
Scott Evil: I was thinking I like animals. Maybe I’d be a vet.
Dr. Evil: An evil vet?
— Austin Powers***
I never really thought about it, but I always assumed there weren’t any “evil” vets out there and Mike Myers as Dr. Evil in the movie Austin Powers was pretty funny when he suggested it. I assume that most veterinarians are motivated by their compassion for animals, but that’s a little naive of me considering that the veterinary and medical industries are based on cruelty to laboratory animals. But this made my stomach turn — I couldn’t even read much of it, but it basically details how veterinary schools offer a surgery elective that involves taking perfectly healthy (live) dogs, using them as vivisection subjects, and euthanizing them after their internal organs have been destroyed by scalpels. I’d actually heard they do something like this at U Penn, but I figured it was an isolated incident or blown out of proportion. Apparently not.
I’m glad to see that Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (after a NEAVS campaign) has stopped dicing up dogs and killing them. Can you believe veterinary students in the other 26 veterinary schools in the U.S. do this? You’d think veterinary students, like Scott Evil, would go into veterinary medicine because they like animals, and thus would like dogs too much to do this sort of thing to them, but no . . .
Here is the article:
Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and NEAVS Announce End to Terminal Surgical Lab Elective at Veterinary School
 NEAVS’ veterinary education program. |
Grafton, MA - The Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (TUSVM), Grafton, MA, yesterday (Feb. 8, 2000) announced plans that will end terminal dog lab as an elective for third-year veterinary students in the coming academic year. The announcement came after a focused year-long collaborative effort with the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS), one of the country’s oldest animal advocacy organizations.
Tufts becomes the first of the nation’s 27 veterinary schools to announce plans to eliminate all terminal labs (wherein healthy animals are used for surgical training and then euthanized at the end of the class) on all species.
“This step is the culmination of a series of efforts since 1989 to provide top quality veterinary surgical training while at the same time promoting the humane treatment of animals,” said Gary Patronek, head of Tufts’ Center for Animals and Public Policy.
“NEAVS has always believed in education as the way to create a compassionate ethic to animals,” said NEAVS President Theodora Capaldo, EdD. “By working collaboratively, by keeping the dialogue open, and by providing substantive research and alternatives, NEAVS and Tufts have created an ethical surgery curriculum that will result in a better world for veterinary students and the animals in their care.
Patronek added, “By increasing surgical opportunities at area shelters and our own spay/neuter clinic, we are able to provide students with a challenging surgical experience that builds confidence and provides an excellent way of learning the fundamentals of good surgical technique. After a period of evaluation, Tufts has found no distinguishable difference in the skill-level between students who have or have not taken the elective surgical lab. This has been supported through post-graduate employer feedback,” he said.
“NEAVS used a reasonable, educationally grounded approach to back up its ethical argument against killing animals in veterinary teaching and training,” said Capaldo. “Animal advocates and veterinary students seeking a superior and ethically sound surgical training experience should all be gratified by Tufts’ decision, and by NEAVS’ commitment to achieving positive change.”
As part of its work with Tufts, NEAVS provided books and alternatives to the use of animals for educational purposes. NEAVS also pioneered, and now coordinates, a Veterinary Education Program so that Tufts students who requested to participate would receive a meticulously crafted and carefully supervised surgical experience. Students in the week-long program spay/neuter and perform necessary surgeries such as bone repairs on abandoned dogs and abandoned or feral cats.
NEAVS and Tufts are at the forefront of responding to the ethical concerns of students and the public nationwide. The change underway at Tufts is part of a growing call for reform sweeping the country, Capaldo noted. She added, “We understand the need to prepare students to be outstanding veterinarians and we at NEAVS salute Tufts’ leadership on the important ethics issue and are hopeful that other schools will follow suit. The commitment and cooperation shown by NEAVS and Tufts in moving surgical training forward is setting a new standard for ethical education everywhere.”
hey dicing up dos is mean and stuff
Comment by Jesus loves dogs dead or not — October 22, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
Well, I’m not sure if this is a real comment or a spam thing, but I agree, dicing up dogs is mean.
Comment by Emily — October 24, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
Wow that’s cruel.
Comment by ashley mcfee — December 18, 2007 @ 12:24 pm
I am a current veterinary student and understand that the junior jurgery sounds very cruel to you. But in actuality it is the most humane way to benefit all animals treated by veterinarians. All dogs that go through junior surgery are dogs that our selfish, wasteful society has slated to die already. Over populated animal shelters, terrible puppie mills, and research communities have thousands of dogs every put to death because nobody wants them anymore. We as veterinarians know how terrible ti is to waste any animals life. Junior surgery gives these dogs a little longer life by taking them in and allowing the vet students to play and interact with them but instead of simply killing them we will anesthesize them just as you would if you were going thru surgery, during which they are not aware of their surrounds or any pain. Surgical proceedures that we need to master so we will be able to save your pet one day are then preformed on the anesthesized dogs. When the surgery is completed we then increased the anesthetic dose so body functions slow and the heart stops. The dogs never feel any pain and we don’t ever wake them up from invasive proceedures to study recovery (that is cruel). We simply euthanize them as society would have done anyway but we don’t waste their lives we learn from them so we can then go on to halp other dogs and cats with those learned surgeries after we graduate. Not only do we prevent wasteful death students are allowed to adopt any dogs that they feel should have been adopted or were not given a chance, one of which I adopted. So I ask you, should society throw dogs away with no thought or should we strive to stop over population and ignorant breeding but in the meantime learn from the animals that have been fated to die. Would you like me to learn surgery on a sick, poorly treated dog, that was going to be killed by the local shelter or on your dog after I graduate. Very few of the veterinary schools in the country have terminal surgery programs left but the consequences are being seen more and more when young graduate get hired and can’t perform basic surgeries such as fixing a broken leg or removing a foreign body from your animals GI tract. So before you pass judgement please know the whole story.
Comment by Mary Kooney — March 29, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
Dear Mary,
Thank you for commenting on this post. I’m always glad to hear from veterinary students/veterinarians. However, when I read your comment, I found it offended me for a number of reasons. I’m sure you’re a great person, but I think we have fundamentally different opinions on a number of things.
First, I found it offensive because I feel like I’m reading a Nazi medical researcher’s explanation for why Nazi medical researchers tortured and murdered thousands of Jewish/Gypsy/other “unwanted” people. I don’t see unwanted dogs as sacrificial animals inferior to wanted dogs — I see them as just as good as wanted dogs. I think it’s people who are the problem – people who breed these dogs that aren’t wanted, and who don’t insist their political representatives pass laws that are stricter about puppy mills and people abandoning their dogs. These unwanted dogs should NOT be punished for bad people.
Did you know that a lot of Nazi medical research was incredibly informative in terms of human medicine? Do you have any idea how much of an advancement of science using people as experimental subjects is for human medicine? Really, from a purely objective standpoint, we should use unwanted humans as surgical subjects. I’m completely serious about this. We could advance human surgery to incredible new levels by doing so — by harming the few, we could save the many. But we don’t, because from an ethical standpoint, torturing people in the name of medicine is horrifying. (Not that we haven’t in the past. Not just Nazi doctors. Prisoners condemned to death used to be horrifically experimented on in ancient Egypt. Convicts in the United States used to be subjected to horrible scientific “research” up into the 1950s (British Medical Journal). African American people in Tuskegee were subjected to being denied treatment for syphilis long after it was available because scientists were interested in determining what would happen if syphilis were allowed to progress for a long time. This is now regarded as an abomination in the name of scientific research, and epidemiology will always be regarded as tainted because of it.)
Second, I find it offensive that you describe unnecessary surgeries on healthy dogs as “humane.” Those surgeries may be scientifically beneficial, yes, I’ll agree with you. Humane they are NOT. I can’t believe you’re really describing it as “humane” that these dogs are mutilated before being put to sleep. Would you describe it as humane if I mutilated your body and then put you to sleep? Your parent, your sibling, your child? Would it be even more humane if you were an unwanted human being, and not a wanted human being? Also I’m suspicious that any amount of anaesthetic can really dull horrific pain – though I am very glad to hear that you do not ever wake up the dogs from invasive procedures to study recovery).
Finally, I also find it offensive that you say that veterinary students must injure dogs to learn how to set their legs. Maybe this is the case NOW, but don’t you think this is a sign – no, a wake-up call — that we should, as a society, attempt to reduce the number of dogs this must be done to, and look into alternatives? Your just saying yes it’s cruel, but there’s no way to get around this, seems like you’re throwing up your hands and agreeing to mutilate innocent dogs. The animal testing people are all about finding kinder alternatives – have you seen the developments in in vitro technology lately? They’ve come up with all kinds of artificial tissues and joints – so why don’t the veterinary surgery people look into this too? There’s a wonderful site – Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights – that seems to focus on this sort of thing. And I’m sure there are lots of unknown veterinary scientists doing research on this sort of thing who could use more publicity. I think, if you really care for dogs yet want to be a surgeon, you should stop describing performing practice surgeries on “unwanted” dogs as being “humane” and state that it may not be humane, but it’s a sacrifice of the few for the greater good of the many, and it’s helping you to learn how to become a surgeon (which is incredibly valuable to society and numerous hurt dogs). I hope you’ll also try to advocate for and publicize any veterinary researchers you find who are trying to create alternatives to using live dogs. Just think if some scientist could develop a synthetic broken dog leg or GI tract with a foreign body in it – wouldn’t that be fantastic? Thousands of synthetic broken legs could be created and veterinary students could become incredibly good at setting broken legs before going anywhere near a live dog. Hey – they used to think that a rabbit had to be killed for every pregnancy test – but some clever scientist discovered a way to make a pregnancy test that requires no live sacrifice.
That being said, I am glad you recognize the sacrifice these dogs make to science. Many people don’t. Those dogs are allowing my dog to live a longer life than she otherwise would, and I am extremely grateful. Heck, most veterinary surgery eventually gives way to breakthroughs in human surgery – I may be able to live longer than I otherwise would because of the sacrifices of these poor unwanted dogs.
Regards,
Emily
Comment by Emily — March 30, 2008 @ 1:25 am
This is horrific ! I just found out about vets killing animals last year! I can’t believe this!
There are definately shady vets out there. Years ago (I think it was like 2002 )I was watching dateline or something like that and a person that worked at a vets clinic witnessed the vet beating animals. She put a hidden camera and oh my god it was horrific. The vet punched a cat over and over again in the head while the cat was under anesthesia. The vet was also shown whipping a dog with the dog’s leash! The disgusting monster when to court and the judge let him go! I can’t believe how horrible. I was honestly sitting on my couch and crying and cursing the damn creeps.
Comment by Natasha — April 21, 2008 @ 1:03 pm