The majority of medical schools in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, have replaced their use of live animals in physiology, pharmacology, and/or surgical-training exercises with humane and effective non-animal teaching methods, including observation of actual human cardiac bypass surgery, patient simulators, cadavers, sophisticated computer programs, and more.

In addition to being more humane, non-animal teaching tools such as computer simulations, multimedia CD-ROMs, and models are also more economical than traditional animal-based teaching exercises.(1) Whereas the “traditional” approach involves the acquisition and disposal of animals on an ongoing basis, purchasing a set of CD-ROMs represents a one-time expenditure for a product that can be used repeatedly for many years. Schools can save tens of thousands of dollars each year by implementing re-usable replacements for animal “specimens.”

Studies have shown that non-animal teaching methods are as effective as older, less humane methods. For example:

 • A study of first-year biology undergraduates found that examination results of those students who used model rats were equivalent to those who had performed rat dissections.(2)

 • A similar study examined a class of first-year biology students, half of whom used traditional “hands-on” laboratories while the remainder used computer software. Biology knowledge of the computer-taught students increased significantly more than did that of the traditional group.(3)

References:

1. Jonothan Balcombe, Ph.D., The Use of Animals in Higher Education. Problems, Alternatives, and Recommendations,  Washington, D.C.: Humane Society Press, 2000.
2. Balcombe.
3. Balcombe.