PETA Donation of $1M in High-Tech Surgical Simulators to End Animal Labs in Nine Countries

PETA’s Gift Will Save Thousands of Animals, Modernize Medical Training

For Immediate Release:
January 14, 2014

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Thousands of animals on three continents will no longer be cut apart and killed in medical training courses, thanks to PETA’s donation of $1 million in simulators to nations in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia.

PETA, through a landmark partnership with Seattle-based medical simulation manufacturer Simulab, is modernizing medical training around the world with a donation of 64 state-of-the-art TraumaMan surgical simulators to completely replace the use of animals in deadly trauma training exercises in nine countries.

Bolivia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia, Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago will now use TraumaMan instead of animals to train thousands of doctors to perform lifesaving surgical procedures on victims of traumatic injuries. TraumaMan replicates a breathing, bleeding human torso and has realistic layers of skin and tissue, ribs, and internal organs.

Until now, limited budgets have prevented international programs that teach the popular American College of Surgeons–sponsored Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course from establishing modern simulation laboratories, which are standard in developed nations. As a result, ATLS trainees were required to cut crude holes into the chests, throats, abdomens, and limbs of thousands of live dogs, goats, pigs, and sheep each year.

“This donation will provide doctors with the most advanced lifesaving trauma training available and prevent thousands of animals from being hurt and killed,” says PETA Director of Laboratory Investigations Justin Goodman. “PETA’s first-of-its-kind collaboration with Simulab and surgeons around the world to modernize medical training shows that animal welfare and human welfare go hand in hand.”

PETA’s donation of TraumaMan systems—which are used in virtually all ATLS programs in the U.S. and Canada—and a special extended discount the organization has negotiated on the replacement TraumaMan “skins” means that training facilities will now spend less to use TraumaMan than they did to use animals. Additionally, because TraumaMan is portable, these countries can now offer the courses more frequently and expand their ATLS programs into remote regions.

Studies show that doctors who learn lifesaving surgical skills on TraumaMan are more proficient than those who cut into animals, largely because TraumaMan actually mimics human anatomy and allows trainees to repeat procedures until they’re confident and adept.

PETA’s donation of TraumaMan systems, also supported by PETA Germany and the McGrath Family Foundation of San Diego, is the group’s single-largest contribution to promote the use of non-animal scientific methods to date.

For more information about PETA’s donations, please click here.