The cardiovascular laboratory for first-year medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin provides students with an exceptional learning experience. It brings together all of the information they have learned in their coursework to date, and applies that knowledge in a real-life situation. It is the only opportunity that students will have in their medical education to experience the cardiovascular function of a large animal with similar responses as humans before they begin clinical work with patients. The use of live animals in this course is strongly endorsed by the American Physiological Society.
The laboratory experience involves the use of dogs. All animals are treated humanely and are fully anesthetized during this laboratory. The cardiovascular system of a dog is remarkably similar to that of humans. That is why so many medical advances in cardiac care and our understanding of the cardiovascular system of humans are traced to medical research using dogs.
The dogs used in the lab are purchased from a licensed, USDA vendor. None of the dogs have been pets and would have been euthanized, if not made available for this course.
Medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin are responsible for mastering the science taught in their coursework. No student is required to participate in the cardiovascular laboratory nor does failure to participate impact their course grade. Over the past decade, more than 95% of the Medical College of Wisconsin's medical students have participated in this teaching laboratory because they have viewed this as an important learning experience.
Only 20 American medical schools offer a cardiovascular laboratory. Those schools that do not utilize this learning experience attribute their decision to the laboratory's high costs in personnel time and the purchase of animals, not as a result of lack of value in the experience.
At the Medical College of Wisconsin, the cardiovascular laboratory is offered as part of the Department of Physiology's curriculum. The Medical College's Physiology Department, one of the nation's highest ranked programs for NIH funding support in physiology, is well-staffed with professors, post-doctoral fellows, research technologists and graduate students who are trained and well-qualified to do animal research.
Position Statement on the importance of using dogs in the cardiovascular laboratory (in pdf format).