NEW DELHI, INDIA, April 27, 2001: Many American schoolchildren now have the right to dissect a virtual frog or a plastic model rather than the real thing. Now American Medical schools are catching up and recommending others do the same. Dr Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon, is in India to introduce methods that replace animals. Computer simulators allow students to view the effect of drugs and invasive procedures by watching actual operating room footage or working with life-like human models. He encouraged Indian medical colleges to follow the Harvard Medical School example where such methods were used as they were less expensive, more effective, and relevant to human physiology. Students work without guilt and at their own pace. First year students should observe human bypass surgeries, rather than “veterinary medicine,” he quipped. The use of animals for medical training is anti-educational, states the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington DC. More than half of the 126 Medical schools in the US had stopped using live animals for their physiology labs.
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