Disposable Animal Surgeries at OSU are Unnecessary
Disposable Animal Surgeries at OSU are Unnecessary“Disposable” Animal Surgeries at OSU are Unnecessary
In recent months much attention has been drawn to a veterinary class offered by Oregon State University. Until last February, little thought had been given to the College of Veterinary Medicine, or CVM, since it was founded in 1979. VM 757, a small animal surgery class, teaches students to perform different types of surgeries on cats and dogs, experience that is helpful in obtaining a job upon graduation. The animals used in these experiments are purchased in large quantities from an animal dealer based in Arkansas.
Although this class adequately prepares students for the field, it contradicts the purpose of veterinary training, which is to save animal lives. Veterinary animal experimentation is wrong because it is denies animals their basic rights to life, it is traumatizing to veterinary students, and it is entirely unnecessary. Students at OSU should be required to participate in a four-year part time internship program at a local veterinary clinic. This would raise the quality and duration of student’s surgery experience as well as spare the lives of hundreds of animals.
Over winter term in 2000, approximately 80 dogs and cats were put to death by the VM 757 class (PETA 1). This practice is cruel and unethical because the animals used in the surgery were perfectly healthy. According to an article in the OSU Daily Barometer, “When the animals are brought over from the research lab, they are well fed and have healthy coats . . . they do not appear diseased or abused in any way” (Pils 7). If adopted, most of those animals could have lived full and healthy lives. Instead they were given quick and untimely deaths in the name of medicine. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, believes that animals should have the ” . . .right not to have pain unnecessarily inflicted on him or her (PETA 1).” Every organism should be allowed the freedom to live and die of its own momentum. OSU denied 80 animals the right to live last term when they practiced surgeries on and euthenized them.
Supporters of the class argue that more lives are saved than taken when you account for all of the animals OSU graduates have helped. But the skills they gained are minimal compared to the experience they would have gained by spending a few hours a week observing and assisting in surgeries at a veterinary hospital. The current program offers very short externships, which are only available at the University of Washington. This program is too far removed and not long enough. A part time internship over the course of their studies at the University would be valuable beyond measure, and would certainly provide more experience than a 10-week course taken one time in a four-year period.
Where as an internship could help VM students feel that they are helping animals, the small animal surgery class requires them...
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