Use of animals in medical education.

Much anecdotal information has been exchanged in recent years concerning the degree to which medical schools do or do not utilize live animals in the course of their instruction of undergraduate medical students. To gain an accurate assessment of this issue, the Association of American MedicalColleges (AAMC) has recently undertaken a several-phase survey of all 126 accredited medical schools in the United States. A study conducted by the AAMC in 1985 and published in a Congressional report (1) showed that in a small sample of medical schools, animal use in instruction was widespread but largely restricted to a few disciplines: pharmacology, surgery, and physiology. A survey of physiology departments (2) (also included in the Congressional report) revealed that 6 of 65 reporting units had discontinued animal laboratories during the preceding 10 years. Still, more than 80% of respondents had retained dog or other animal exercises in their curriculum. In 1988, Barnard et al. (3) sampled physiology, pharmacology, and surgery departments in US medical ‘schools and reported data suggesting that at least half of all