After instructors inspect the abdominal closures, the students complete their assignment by providing Rover with a lethal dose of barbiturates, killing the patient. In some respects, the curriculum change is largely symbolic. Even with terminal surgeries being removed from the core laboratory curriculum for most veterinary students, many UC Davis students specializing in large animal medicine will still have to perform them, and there are still many elective courses in which small animal veterinary students may still perform terminal surgeries on dogs and cats. So this change only means that the school will no longer ask most of its veterinary students to perform terminal surgeries as standard practice. Critics of the procedure claim that not only is the use of live animals in teaching unnecessary and unethical, but also that the participating students haven't always thought through what it is that they're doing beforehand.
Many prospective students are unaware that terminal surgeries are a part of veterinary school.
Some say that even after arrival the reality doesn't always begin to sink in for the student until later, despite the fact that they were informed about the issue by the school. You're bombarded with so much information at the start. Beyond the symbolic importance of not asking students to kill animals, the curriculum change has also reduced the number of animals being killed by UC Davis students. And as the faculty explores new alternatives to terminal surgeries, even for its elective classes, that number is expected to drop even lower, with some school officials predicting that the practice at UC Davis could be eliminated altogether within the next 10 years. Animals rights activists tried to end the practice of selling live animals for research with Measure L in 1989, but the measure was defeated after winning less than 35 percent of the vote.