As part of our 2011 resolve to End Animal Experiments, Everywhere We Can, we ask Tulane University to get with the program.

The other 95 percent of medical schools with Advanced Trauma Life Support programs exclusively use human-patient simulators in place of dogs, goats or pigs. Tulane is stuck in the 5 percent of U.S. institutions that still direct students to cut apart (and later kill) pigs and other animals.

Prior to 2001 — when the American College of Surgeons (ACS) officially endorsed Simulab's TraumaMan — nearly all lab exercises involved live animals. Students used animals for: cricothyroidotomy (neck incision to alleviate blocked airway); pericardiocentesis (fluid removal from sac that encases heart); and chest tube insertion (drainage of blood, fluid or air to facilitate lung expansion). PCRM Background On ATLS

Given the transformation of classroom training from crude animal surgeries, bleed-outs and killing...to sophisticated simulators, human cadaver systems, real-life hospital rotations...there is zero justification for live labs in 2011. Politely ask Tulane to use animal-free teaching tools alone.