Hartford Hospital is hell for animals
Update: Read a Hartford Courant cover story about our 5/24 HH protest.
*********************

Hartford Hospital, in concert with the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, administers
a program called the Advanced Trauma Operative Management course (ATOM).  ATOM
includes a 3-hour lab session during which medical students pay $1,500 each to manage
fourteen different traumatic injuries that are intentionally inflicted in live adult pigs. The animals
must suffer through 14 penetrating injuries (see right column of page 472) such as stab
wounds, “to numerous organs in the abdomen and chest, including the bowel, bladder,
kidney, ureter, pancreas, duodenum, stomach, diaphragm, liver, inferior vena cava, spleen and
heart."

Hartford Hospital uses five pigs per month in this series of highly invasive surgical procedures
at the end of which they are killed.  According to documents obtained from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (see page 5) the facility regularly confines over 100 pigs for use in this program.  
They also use mice, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits and sheep in various other forms of
experimentation.  

Pigs are sentient individuals who have the right be treated with respect and who suffer
immensely as a result of being raised, confined, mutilated for these kinds of exercises.
This course is not only morally wrong, but scientifically unjustifiable.  It is a waste the state's
resources and the lives of these animals training surgeons on anatomically incorrect models,
especially when there are so many promising ethical alternatives that are used at other
facilities including virtual reality simulators and physician observation programs.

These promising alternatives also include the work of Dr. Emad Aboud and his colleagues at
the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.  They have developed a model for conducting
surgical training exercises that utilizes donated human cadavers and could completely
eliminate the need to use live animals for trauma exercises.  His method entails circulating
artificial blood through the vessels of the cadaver using a mechanical pump to simulate a live
human being.  Because of the availability of these kinds of humane alternatives, the American
College of Surgeons no longer uses animals in its trauma training course, nor do they
suggest to do so in its new curriculum.

According to a March 2007 New England Journal of Medicine article (356:1381), inanimate
models and virtual reality simulators, have been shown to provide surgical trainees with
enhanced surgical skills by allowing “very detailed feedback and…more subtle measurement
of trainee performance than is possible in the real world” with humans or animals. These
models, they conclude, are not only effective training tools, but “safe, reproducible, portable,
readily available, and…cost-effective.”

In the interest of upholding their duty to practice ethical medicine, doctors and researchers at
Hartford Hospital should be abandoning these flawed, superfluous animal-based exercises in
favor of pursuing effective, economical, human-relevant, humane alternatives.

Testimonials:

"The surgery training paradigm has moved beyond the use of live animals. More than  
95 percent of American medical schools have eliminated the use of animals to teach
surgery skills, the majority of Advanced Trauma Life Support courses do not use
animals, and the American College of Surgeons no longer uses animals in its own
courses or in its revised surgery curriculum."

-John Pippin, M.D., Senior Medical and Research Adviser for the Physician's
Committee for Responsible Medicine, April 2007

"Using live animals is simply not a sound way to teach medical students the basics of
surgery, anatomy or any other subject. It's profoundly inhumane.  Physicians need to learn
about the human body - not the bodies of pigs, goats, rabbits or any other animals. That's
why the overwhelming majority of U.S. medical schools, and even the American College of
Surgeons, now use human patient simulators, lectures and physician observation
programs.

Students deserve to know that there are better and more humane ways to obtain a
medical education without having to compromise ethics."

-Samuel L. Jacobs, M.D., former fellow in reproductive endocrinology at the University of
Connecticut Health Center and current Associate professor of clinical obstetrics and
gynecology at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson
Medical School.

Act now!

Tell Hartford Hospital to end live pig trauma courses!!

Mr. Elliot Joseph
President and CEO
Tel: 860 545-2100
Email: ejoseph@harthosp.org

Dr. Lenworth Jacobs
Director, Trauma Program/ATOM
Tel: 860 545-3112
Email: ljacobs@harthosp.org

Erica Thompson
Coordinator, ATOM program
Tel: 860-545-3766
Email: ethomps@harthosp.org

Liz Pelletier
Animal Research Facility Manager/IACUC member
Tel: 860-545-3164
Email: epellet@harthosp.org

Dr. Laurine Bow
Director, Research Program
lbow@harthosp.org

Hartford Hospital
80 Seymour Street
Hartford, CT 06102

All emails:
ejoseph@harthosp.org, epellet@harthosp.org, lbow@harthosp.org, ljacobs@harthosp.org,
ethomps@harthosp.org

****Sample letter/talking points****

Dear [NAME]:

Thank you for your time. I am writing as a concerned citizen to express my opposition to a
program at Hartford Hospital called the Advanced Trauma Operative Management course
(ATOM).  ATOM includes a 3-hour lab session during which surgery trainees and practitioners
manage fourteen different traumatic injuries that are intentionally inflicted in live adult pigs. The
animals must suffer through penetrating injuries such as stab wounds to numerous organs in
the abdomen and chest, including the stomach, diaphragm, liver, spleen and heart.  

Pigs are sentient individuals who have the right be treated with respect and who suffer
immensely as a result of being raised, confined, mutilated for these kinds of exercises.
This course is not only morally wrong, but scientifically unjustifiable.  It is a waste the state's
resources and the invaluable lives of these animals training surgeons on anatomically
incorrect models, especially when there are so many promising ethical alternatives that are
used at other facilities including virtual reality simulators and physician observation programs.  
Further, researchers at UCHC and Hartford Hospital should be working towards developing
and adopting alternatives that are both ethically and pedagogically superior.

These promising alternatives include the work of Dr. Emad Aboud and his colleagues at
the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences who have developed a vascular model for
conducting surgical training exercises that utilizes donated human cadavers and eliminates
the need to use live animals for penetrating trauma training.  This method entails circulating
artificial blood through the vessels of the cadaver using a mechanical pump to simulate all of
the circumstances of live surgery.

More than 95% of American medical schools have eliminated the use of animals to teach
surgery skills, most trauma training courses have as well, and the American College of
Surgeons no longer uses animals in its own courses or in its revised surgery curriculum.

Please end the use of animals in surgical training courses at the Hartford Hospital.  In the
interest of upholding their duty to practice ethical medicine, doctors and researchers at
Hartford Hospital should be abandoning these cruel, flawed, superfluous animal-based
exercises in favor of pursuing human-relevant, humane alternatives.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

(name)
(address)
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Photos from a 2005 undercover investigation at contract testing firm and primate supplier. Covance Laboratories.  The macaques above
are used for drug testing at Covance before they are eventually sent to labs like the one at UMC and UCHC to be abused and killed.
All sentient animals (human and
non-) have an inherent value that
exists outside of their utility to
others.  We recognize this value
and afford these individuals the
right to be treated in a manner
that is respectful of it.  To act in
a way that reduces animals
(human and non-) to mere
resources for others to exploit
for food, experimentation,
clothing or entertainment is a
violation of this right and it is our
obligation to insure that such
exploitation does not continue.