Please Ask the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to End the Use of Pigs in ATLS Courses

Immediate, please sign and send:
Ask the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to End the Use of Pigs in ATLS Courses

FROM PCRM

Please take a minute to let University of Pittsburgh Medical Center executive vice president Elizabeth Concordia know that you want her to stop the use of live pigs in the hospital system’s Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) courses. We have provided text for you, but if you decide to write your own message, please be polite and encouraging. Here are some talking points:

1. Please replace the use of animals in UPMC’s ATLS courses before the next course on Nov. 18 and 19.
2. Human-based training methods have been approved to teach these procedures by the American College of Surgeons.
3. Ninety-five percent of ATLS courses in the United States use the TraumaMan System or other human-based methods.
4. Of the 12 ATLS courses in Pennsylvania, UPMC’s is the only one that still uses live animals.

After you input your details, click the Send Message button HERE

BACKGROUND

Two weeks ago, I asked you to contact the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) administration and urge them to end their cruel and unnecessary use of pigs in trauma training courses. Your response was overwhelming.

More than 20,000 people contacted the hospital system’s administration, and they heard your voices loud and clear. Last week, UPMC announced that it plans to transition away from the use of animals in its Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) courses “within the next few months.” But, considering UPMC will hold another one of these courses next month, that is not soon enough.

Please call or e-mail Elizabeth Concordia, executive vice president of UPMC, and tell her to eliminate animal use before the next ATLS course, which takes place Nov. 18 and 19.

Elizabeth Concordia
Executive Vice President
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Phone: 412-647-8788
E-mail: concordiaeb@upmc.edu

UPMC is among only 5 percent of U.S. institutions using animals for these courses. Furthermore, UPMC already has a state-of-the-art simulation center that could easily provide nonanimal training methods for ATLS courses.

Please contact Ms. Concordia today and ask her again to join the 95 percent of institutions that use human-based trauma training methods.

If you have a few more minutes, please consider taking action on these three issues, too, if you have not already, thank you.

1. Contact Tulane University School of Medicine senior vice president and dean Dr. Benjamin Sachs, M.B., and urge him to end the practice of using live animals
2. Help End the Use of Sheep for Trauma Training at Mass General
3. End the Use of Live Pigs at Baystate Medical Center

RESOURCES:

DISSECTION / TESTING

Bad Medicine, full-length

Vodpod videos no longer available.