John Hopkins University Medical Students Will No Longer Practice Vivisection - National Humane Education Society

Paws Up!

To the John Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, MD, for Ceasing Vivisection by Medical Students

For decades, medical students practiced surgical and other medical techniques on living, breathing – and highly intelligent animals. After being cut open, dissected, or otherwise operated upon, the healthy animals were destroyed by the students. This training method, known as vivisection, has been  contested by animal welfare advocates both outside and within the medical community for many years. Vivisection solely describes the cutting of a live animal; prosection describes the dissection of a dead animal.

Thankfully, over the years the vast majority of medical schools have abandoned the practice of vivisection due to obvious ethical implications and superior training options in the form of computer programs and simulators.

At John Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, pigs were the primary animals used to train surgical students. After the pigs were practiced upon, they were destroyed. According to a recent news article, however, this practice will soon end, as John Hopkins University School of Medicine has announced the school will end the practice of vivisection by the end of June 2016. The live pigs once doomed to the operating table will be replaced with simulators and computer models.

Thanks to this new directive, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s College of Medicine is the one remaining medical school in the U.S. that continues to direct students to practice medical technique on live animals.

Take action. Contact John Hopkins University School of Medicine and thank them for ceasing vivisection in their classrooms. Contact the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s College of Medicine and respectfully ask that they too, end the practice of vivisection as soon as possible.