ISU ends training on live dogs

POCATELLO, Idaho – Idaho State University says it will no longer use live dogs in an Advanced Trauma Life Support class.

The class, offered once a year at the school by the Idaho Committee on Trauma, allowed paramedics, physicians and other medical personnel to practice tracheotomies, the removal of excess blood from internal bleeding and other procedures on the dogs. Four dogs were used for each class, and all were animals from the Pocatello Animal Shelter already scheduled for euthanasia. They were anesthetized during the training and put to sleep immediately afterward, the Idaho State Journal reported.

In a statement issued Friday, the school said the use of dogs for such a course is approved by the American College of Surgeons and that the program was in compliance with all national animal care regulations. But the school said the class, taught by ISU professor Alex Urfer, will use high-tech mannequins that simulate human functions in the future.

ISU decided to end the use of live dogs after the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine brought attention to the course in an article published in the Idaho State Journal.

“While there is yet to be an effective simulation equivalent to the experiential learning that comes from training with living tissue, further institution review and deliberation has concluded that the primary objectives of trauma training can be achieved using alternate methods approved by the ACS,” such as the high-tech mannequins, the school wrote in a press release.

Jeff Rosenthal, the executive director of the Idaho Humane Society, was one of several people who had urged changes in the lab.

“When an animal shelter relinquishes pets obtained as strays or from owners to such facilities, they endanger the trust that the community has in the shelter as a place where lost or abandoned animals find refuge and a chance to find a new home with a caring family,” Rosenthal wrote in a letter to the editor.

But many people who have taken Urfer’s class say there’s no substitute for learning on live tissue, even if it’s canine.

Chris Bocek, a conservation officer with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, started out as a premed student before switching careers. But he said the things he’s learned in Urfer’s course have come in handy. He once had to help amputate the leg of a moose in the field.

“It was an invaluable resource to actually work with living organisms and tissues,” Bocek said. “You are still gaining valuable knowledge in the general function of organs within a living body. We would monitor respiratory rates and heart rates, and we could actually see the organs working.”