The University of Michigan is one of only five percent of programs that still use live animals in emergency response training. Although U of M switched from dogs to simulators for similar trauma training courses, their Survival Flight training still uses pigs and cats for trainees to practice on.

U of M claims that training Survival Flight nurses "requires these procedures to be performed on live tissues." However, the professional organization representing flight nurses, the Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association, disagrees. They not only endorse the use of simulators to teach these skills, but in the last year, 29 out of 30 of their own training courses used simulators instead of animals.

Tell the University of Michigan to stop using live animals in their Survival Flight Training.

Photo credit: TerryJohnston