Courses Drop Use of Animals

The practice of using live animals in trauma-medicine training courses has officially ended in Canada after two institutions recently agreed to switch to computerized simulators. Quebec’s University of Sherbrooke and Montreal’s Sacré Coeur hospital were the last to join the other 20 establishments that offer Advanced Trauma Life Support programs, which train on simulators instead of live dogs and pigs. Dr. Pierre Cossette, dean of Sherbrooke’s medical school, says in the National Post that the computer simulators provide feedback to trainees regarding their operations, which he says is “the best way, educationally speaking, to do that type of teaching and learning.”