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U-M Survival Flight training facts at a glance
- The Survival Flight training program's mission is to ensure flight nurses are fully prepared to provide the highest level of life-saving care to patients during a medical emergency.
- Out of 160 hours of classroom and hands-on training flight nurses get each year, only the 1.5 hours spent in the surgical skills lab involve amimals.
- The training uses a small number of pigs - 4 per session.
- The animals are fully anesthetized during the procedures and feel no pain.
- Starting in the summer of 2011, U-M developed a new program for intubation training which no longer requires us to rely on cats and which will use simulators instead. No cats have been used in training since July 2011 and there are no plans to use them in the future.
- From 2002 through July 2011, of the 23 cats used in training, seven were euthanized. The remaining 16 cats were adopted into new homes.
- The cats were not harmed and were adopted out whenever possible; sometimes pre-existing medical conditions, behavioral issues or failure to find a new home prevented adoption.
- The pigs are euthanized while still under anesthesia -- which is not the case for millions of pigs raised for food each year in the United States.
- Though we look forward to the day when we can phase out animal use completely in our Survival Flight training course, we don't believe mechanical simulators are adequate for ensuring our nurses develop the level of surgical skill required to perform their duties effectively.
- Until simulators improve, we will continue to train our nurses using animals so that the first time one of our professionals employs one of these life-saving techniques it isn't on someone's spouse, parent or child during a medical emergency.
For more information visit: http://animal.research.umich.edu.
Last reviewed: December 9, 2011