Group's Gift Will Save Animals, Improve Medical Training 

Thousands of animals on three continents will soon be spared being cut apart and killed in medical training courses, thanks to PETA US' unprecedented donation of $1 million (£610,000) in simulators to countries in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. 

PETA US, through a landmark partnership with Seattle-based medical simulation manufacturer Simulab, is modernising medical training around the world with a donation of 64 state-of-the-art TraumaMan surgical simulators to replace the crude use of animals in deadly trauma training exercises completely in nine countries. 

Bolivia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago will now use TraumaMan instead of animals to train thousands of doctors to perform life-saving surgical procedures on victims of traumatic injuries. TraumaMan replicates a breathing, bleeding human torso and has realistic layers of skin and tissue, ribs and internal organs. 

Until now, limited budgets have prevented international programmes that teach the popular American College of Surgeons–sponsored Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course from establishing modern simulation laboratories, which are standard in developed nations. As a result, ATLS trainees were required to cut crude holes into the chests, throats, abdomens and limbs of thousands of live dogs, goats, pigs and sheep each year. 

"This donation will provide thousands of doctors with the best, most advanced life-saving trauma training available and prevent thousands of animals from being mutilated and killed", says PETA UK Associate Director Mimi Bekhechi. "PETA US' first-of-its-kind collaboration with Simulab and surgeons around the world to modernise medical training shows that animal welfare and human welfare go hand in hand." 

PETA US' donation of TraumaMan systems – which are used in virtually all ATLS programmes in the US and Canada – and a special extended discount the organisation has negotiated on the replacement TraumaMan "skins" means that training facilities will now spend less to use TraumaMan than they did to use animals. Additionally, because TraumaMan is portable, these countries can now offer the courses more frequently and expand their ATLS programmes into remote regions. 

Studies show that doctors who learn life-saving surgical skills on TraumaMan are more proficient than those who cut into animals, largely because TraumaMan actually mimics human anatomy and allows trainees to repeat procedures until they're confident and adept. 

PETA US' donation of TraumaMan systems, also supported by PETA Germany and the McGrath Family Foundation of San Diego, is the group's single-largest contribution to promote the use of non-animal scientific methods to date. 

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