9er Domestic came across this petition. She, not being one to trust anything on the Internet, asked me to look into the veracity of the claims. I, not being associated much at all with the CAFMS, thought this place might be a good starting point to determine if this was actually a practice carried out by CAF medics. Haven't seen anything in the MSM regarding this, but, admittedly, I didn't look very hard.
Just a bump to show it's not just an issue here: A German court warned a private company Tuesday to stop a plan to inflict war wounds on pigs so that army paramedics could practice life-saving first aid on the animals. The company was offering to supply anaesthetized pigs which had been shot or...
Just a bump to show it's not just an issue here: A German court warned a private company Tuesday to stop a plan to inflict war wounds on pigs so that army paramedics could practice life-saving first aid on the animals. The company was offering to supply anaesthetized pigs which had been shot or...
9er Domestic came across this petition. She, not being one to trust anything on the Internet, asked me to look into the veracity of the claims. I, not being associated much at all with the CAFMS, thought this place might be a good starting point to determine if this was actually a practice carried out by CAF medics. Haven't seen anything in the MSM regarding this, but, admittedly, I didn't look very hard.
I've participated in live tissue labs in the past, both times in civilian Advanced Trauma Life Support programs. I understand they don't do them anymore given the high fidelity sim labs most medical schools have. The training I felt was better with the animals vs the computers, especially doing stuff like using hemostatic agents and doing damage control surgery practice, since the dummies don't have live blood and the tissues in the simulators don't react to injury, clamping off, etc. As much as I'd have liked to use people, apparently ethics committees and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms frown on us using prisoners or other such people for these sorts of classes.
Never used piglets- always full grown, anesthetized pigs. Not unusual. More artificial simulators nowadays but generally the culmination of the training before doing on people is pigs. Or was.
With the exception of their skin I would think piglets wouldn’t be useful because of their mass for most tactical trauma training.
Never used piglets- always full grown, anesthetized pigs. Not unusual. More artificial simulators nowadays but generally the culmination of the training before doing on people is pigs. Or was.
With the exception of their skin I would think piglets wouldn’t be useful because of their mass for most tactical trauma training.
Never used piglets- always full grown, anesthetized pigs. Not unusual. More artificial simulators nowadays but generally the culmination of the training before doing on people is pigs. Or was.
With the exception of their skin I would think piglets wouldn’t be useful because of their mass for most tactical trauma training.
SF medics in the US used to use them as well...and during the Vietnam era, had to keep them alive for a number of days after injury. Got to practice their surgical techniques and the veterinary medicine they were taught as well. A buddy of mine who's ex-CANSOF had to do a similar thing with a goat in the not so distant past while on a US SOF Medical course.
All great info, folks, and thanks for that. The remaining question is is the CAF still doing this? Or is this petition attempting to stop a practice in Canada that is no longer occurring?
All great info, folks, and thanks for that. The remaining question is is the CAF still doing this? Or is this petition attempting to stop a practice in Canada that is no longer occurring?
All great info, folks, and thanks for that. The remaining question is is the CAF still doing this? Or is this petition attempting to stop a practice in Canada that is no longer occurring?
I can't speak to if it's still happening in the military - while one course I did was affiliated with the CAF and I was serving in the CAF for both I did, the vast majority of the participants, the facilities and the organizers were civilian. I honestly can say last time I used an animal model was in 2007...I'm unsure if they're still being used in Canada, as there are requirements for veterinary people to be there and veterinary anaesthesia, as well as strict regulations regarding the use of animals that must be adhered to the last dot over an "i", which are the same for animal research. That all costs money I can't see the CAF spending if they don't own the facilities - frig, they don't even have their own veterinary corps.
Funny, they're more concerned about that than the Canadian soldiers used to test delivery methods for mustard gas during the Second World War, but it's PETA...
I just finished a sim chest tube course last week - while the dummies we used were adequate for refresher on the kits and retraining the brain/hand interface, they weren't very amenable to ultrasound to practice locating the fluid/air and guidance of the sharp pokey things we were putting in...also the "skin" was shite for securing them in place and the landmark holes were conveniently unsealed.
Good catch! From the January 2023 Toronto Star article linked in the petition (article archived here in case previous link doesn't work), the answer seems to be "seems to have been happening in January," and barring any media out there since January saying it's stopped, is still going on.
... The department says the training follows the guidelines and protocols of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) “to ensure the ethical treatment of animals” and works with international experts to assess simulation technologies “in an effort to minimize and eliminate, wherever possible, the use of animals in training.”
While the department seeks to “refine, reduce and where appropriate replace the use of live animals for research by using alternative experimental techniques,” the statement says, “there is no concrete scientific evidence at this time that can justify the complete replacement of such military medical training with simulation to achieve the advanced level of casualty training required by the CAF.”
While life-like dolls are used for most of the medical training, trainees are “sparingly given the opportunity to refine and improve their skills by using a non-human model,” the statement reads. “This training increases their ability and confidence in the procedures before they deploy so their skills can be more effectively used on the battlefield to save lives.” ...
Used goats on C4 (Combat Casualty Care Course) at Camp Bullis (San Antonio Tx) but that's approaching thirty-five years ago. They would tissue dye the cadavers afterward to prevent them being (surreptitiously) diverted to the food chain.
I can't speak to current CF practice, but I was involved (years and years ago) when it was suggested that we run our own in-house ATLS courses, which back then would have required live animals as the sim just wasn't on par. Remember also that "ATLS" as a formal protocol was only developed/introduced in 1980.
When we were planning the "new" school in the late 1980s (was built and opened in the early 90s), one of the spaces proposed (I don't recall who originated the idea) was an "animal lab". At that time, ATLS was primarily given only to doctors who did it during their very short classification training (mostly non-clinical); it was contracted out and done, usually, at a med school in Toronto. Easy peasy and didn't cost too much in the grand scheme of things. Having it in-house would be a nice to have and (or so I was told) it would be more convenient for scheduling plus they could provide the experience to more occupations. We were reviewing the original draft of the architect's drawings and (along with a number of other inconsistencies) the small space proposed for an "animal lab" stood out. As we (the CFMS as a whole and my section in the SurgGen specifically) had no previous experience with operating such, it took a little research to see what was needed. It fell on me to research the issue (from a business, not clinical case side) because if it was a valid requirement then we would have justify it when presenting to TB (yes, they sometimes got that far down in the weeds on construction projects - it happened when we were building the hospital in Lahr).
It's so much easier now with internet (thank you Al Gore). What I was able do to in a few short minutes this morning took me the better part of a week or more (obviously not full time) to contact various federal, provincial and NGO regulatory agencies/groups as well as some with experience in animal use in medical training and research (yes, I did call Suffield - I was once a guinea pig test subject for them, but that's another story). From a regulatory and PR perspective, the consensus from all was "it's not worth it". From a business side, it would have been about an additional $750K not accounted for in our proposed budget and a few (or more) hundred thousand "annually" to operate it that the CFMSS hadn't considered when they proposed it. At the time they were spending about $20k/$30K to send the docs down the road to do it. Their concept had been "we'll get strays from the pound" which immediately generated a "check fire" response. The animal lab was not included in the new school.
To add to the discussion, a few links to some papers that provide a military clinician perspective.
Funny, they're more concerned about that than the Canadian soldiers used to test delivery methods for mustard gas during the Second World War, but it's PETA...
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