20 - Number Three Use of a Dog Abdominal Surrogate for Teaching Surgery D. L. Holmberg, J. R. Cockshutt, and A. W. P. Basher Drs. Currently, in most veterinary institutions, surgical instruction involves the use of animals, either alive or as cadavers. Many veterinary faculty and students question the use of live animals for teaching surgery, and condemnation of this practice by animal welfare groups has been the focus of considerable public attention. This concern has also made it more difficult and expensive to procure animals for teaching purposes.
Cadavers often have to be stockpiled for varying periods of time prior to their use.
This requires freezer space and the thawed tissues are quite abnormal and aesthetically unpleasant. The integration of students into clinical surgery may be the ideal method of teaching but requires considerably more student contact time and larger faculty numbers than are available at most schools. The advanced type of referral case which is seen at most teaching hospitals is also generally considered to be inappropriate for training the novice surgeon. Although there are some models currently on the market, plastic bones for teaching orthopedics and artificial skin for practicing suturing, there has been no model in general use for teaching abdominal surgery. The multiple layers of the outer shell are designed to be cut and sutured individually, much like the tissues of the canine abdomen.