Courtesy / The Physicians Committee
Emergency medicine residents use live pigs to practice 46 invasive procedures in a training course, according to the Physicians Committee.
An animal-rights group comprised of medical professionals is calling on San Antonio's Brooke Army Medical Center to end the use of live pigs in its emergency medicine residency program.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sent a letter to BAMC on Memorial Day, calling on leaders there to change a long-standing practice of having emergency medicine residents use live pigs to practice 46 invasive procedures in an "emergency skills" course.
Those involve making incisions into an animal's chest to insert a drainage tube, inserting a needle to remove fluid surrounding the heart and spreading the ribs to perform heart procedures. The animals are killed during the exercise, and BAMC is approved to use up to 130 annually, according to the Physicians Committee.
Along with the letter, the activist group purchased three San Antonio billboard ads decrying BAMC's use of the animals. The signs show a pig with a superimposed army helmet. "Pigs make lousy oldiers: Stop using animals to train Army doctors," they read.
BAMC press officials were unavailable for immediate comment on the letter and ad campaign.
Dr. Robert DeMuth — who served two tours in Iraq and trained combat medics at Fort Cavazos — was lead signatory of the letter, which was signed by 10 additional military veterans.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sent a letter to BAMC on Memorial Day, calling on leaders there to change a long-standing practice of having emergency medicine residents use live pigs to practice 46 invasive procedures in an "emergency skills" course.
Those involve making incisions into an animal's chest to insert a drainage tube, inserting a needle to remove fluid surrounding the heart and spreading the ribs to perform heart procedures. The animals are killed during the exercise, and BAMC is approved to use up to 130 annually, according to the Physicians Committee.
Along with the letter, the activist group purchased three San Antonio billboard ads decrying BAMC's use of the animals. The signs show a pig with a superimposed army helmet. "Pigs make lousy oldiers: Stop using animals to train Army doctors," they read.
BAMC press officials were unavailable for immediate comment on the letter and ad campaign.
Dr. Robert DeMuth — who served two tours in Iraq and trained combat medics at Fort Cavazos — was lead signatory of the letter, which was signed by 10 additional military veterans.
"You have an opportunity right now to make your emergency medicine residency program more humane, more human-relevant, and more consistent with standards of best practice," the signatories said in their letter to BAMC brass. "We ask that you eliminate live animals from the emergency medicine residency program as soon as possible."
Scientific research strongly supports the use of simulators that accurately mimic human anatomy as opposed to the use of animals in these programs, DeMuth wrote in the letter. Further, military-funded studies show that simulators yield better training results for trainees.
“We don’t send soldiers into battle with muskets,” DeMuth said in a media statement. “We shouldn’t be preparing physicians to save those soldiers’ lives using 19th century methods.”
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