PETA Strikes Deal to Bring Affordable Non-Animal Simulator to The Victoria College
Stray cats in Victoria, Texas, will no longer be susceptible to being picked up by local animal control officials and taken to The Victoria College for use in endotracheal intubation teaching exercises associated with the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course. Animal intubation laboratories typically involve forcing plastic tubes down cats' throats in order to create artificial airways. This procedure, when performed by inexperienced students, can result in tracheal injury caused by student error and mishandling of the tube.
When PETA learned about this live cat lab, we sent a letter to the college's president, Dr. Jimmy Goodson, informing him of a sophisticated non-animal human patient simulator called PediaSIM that is being used at universities and medical schools across the country. Unlike a cat, whose anatomy differs greatly from that of a human child, PediaSIM has all the appropriate anatomical features and allows students to perform intubations repeatedly until they have perfected the procedure.
In his reply, Dr. Goodson agreed that PediaSIM would provide a "realistic lab experience" and made the following compassionate decision: "[T]he college plans to discontinue the use of live cats in this course and use manikins as many other teaching facilities do." To recognize Dr. Goodson's progressive stance, PETA named The Victoria College a recipient of our "2005 Compassionate Teaching Award."
PETA also managed to strike a deal with the manufacturer of PediaSIM, Medical Education Technologies, Inc. (METI), which agreed to lower the price of the simulator for The Victoria College by more than $3,000, making this state-of-the-art technology even more accessible.
Please write polite letters to Dr. Goodson at the address shown below, thanking him for enhancing student education while also improving animal welfare:
Jimmy Goodson, Ed.D., President
The Victoria College
Administration II Building
2200 East Red River
Victoria, TX 77901
