PETA Donates Lifesaving Human Simulators to National Albanian Trauma Program: Sparing Sheep, Supporting Surgeons

For Immediate Release:
November 8, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Thanks to a donation from PETA, two advanced human simulators have arrived at the University Hospital of Trauma in Tirana for use in the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) Albania program.

The TraumaMan simulation models from Simulab Corporation are human surrogates that will prevent 12 to 18 sheep from being mutilated and killed in surgical practice drills each year.

A TraumaMan advanced simulator donated by PETA. Photo: PETA

“Surgeons in training deserve the best medical education possible, and that means using human-relevant simulation models,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA is delighted to provide Albania’s Advanced Trauma Life Support program with superior technology that spares animals’ lives and allows trainees to practice invasive, lifesaving procedures until they’re confident and adept.”

“ATLS Albania greatly appreciates PETA’s generous donation of realistic TraumaMan models to our national program, which will allow physicians to learn how to effectively treat life-threatening injuries without practicing on animals,” says National Chair of ATLS Albania Agron Dogjani, M.D, Ph.D. “No longer will sheep or any other animals be used in our ATLS training, and we look forward to permanently switching to modern, animal-free simulation technology that will reduce training costs, improve patients’ health, and spare animals’ lives.”

PETA has donated 124 TraumaMan simulators—worth more than $3 million—to ATLS programs in 23 countries, sparing the lives of more than 2,000 animals each year and providing surgeons with superior, human-relevant training. Studies show that doctors who learn lifesaving surgical skills on human simulators are more proficient than those who use animals for their training.

In 2019, PETA and a surgeon published a study in the Journal of Surgical Education that found that the group’s TraumaMan donation program had “successfully transformed the surgical skills laboratories of … international ATLS programs to replace animal use with non-animal simulation models that are more anatomically realistic, cost less, and allow trainees to repeat surgical skills until proficiency.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on,” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—is now calling on Oregon Health & Science University to stop maiming pigs in its obstetrics and gynecology residency program and switch to superior, animal-free training methods, as the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center recently did after hearing from PETA.

For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.