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UCSD
New Physician, Dec 99, vol 48, no. 9, pp. 3-4.
I am a general pathologist in private practice in San Diego and would like to expand on the issues raised in Nancy Hood's article "Animal Labs" ("Spotlight," October 1999). While most U.S. medical schools no longer vivisect animals in freshman physiology and pharmacology labs, some, like the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), still do.
Dog labs are not essential to learn physiology and pharmacology. That much is apparent from the fact that most schools, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, don't offer them. Obviously these labs are not research, nor do they prepare students for surgery.
Good alternatives to dog labs exist. Some schools have students observe open-heart surgery (on a human) , while others use computer simulators to model the heart, lungs, vasculature and kidneys.
Although not widely known, participation in dog labs at UCSD is optional. Students can meet with the course director and express their conscientious objection. However, no alternatives to the labs is provided, and professors say material from the labs is covered on the exams.
I first became aware of student opposition to dog labs at UCSD through my significant other, an associate professor who teaches second-year pathology at the medical school. I was invited to speak at a lunch-time discussion about dog labs geared toward first-year students. The organizers of the event were two fourth-year students who had opted out of dog labs and still scored well on the Boards, received laudatory dean's letters and otherwise suffered no repercussions.
Previous classes at UCSD received little or no information concerning the necessity of the labs, the source of the dogs and professional opposition. Accordingly, almost all students at UCSD have participated in the two labs. But last spring, once the first-year students learned more about the details, nearly a third of the class opted out of the dog labs. Particularly important to the students was that the UCSD dogs are pure-bred Dobermans from a commercial breeding facility, (They are not "pound dogs.")
The professor and I, inspired by the class' dramatic
response, ciculated a petition among local San Diego physicians- addressed to UCSD's
physiology and pharmacology faculty- expressing their opposition to dog labs in the first
year of medical school. To date, 149 local physicians have signed this earnest message.
The signatories include 33 UCSD faculty, four former medical school department chairs, one
member of the National Academy of Sciences, one residency program director, and
staff from nine different hospitals representing 26 medical and surgical specialties.
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