I cannot participate in the death of a healthy animal. Veterinary schools have put behind them the days when a healthy pony was subjected to a semester-long cycle of repeated surgery and recovery until students were familiar with a variety of operations. But the issue of using live healthy animals, even once, for surgical practice has intensified since the mid 1980s.
Opponents say it is needless and inhumane.
School administrators say it is the only way an unskilled student can learn to administer anesthesia and control hemorrhaging. Small numbers of students at seven of the nation's 27 veterinary medicine schools, however, have pressed for and received exemptions for alternative study in the past few years. Ohio State has offered no alternative Kissinger finds acceptable. Unless she participates, she will fail the surgical practices course, which is required for graduation. For Wright and other veterinarians, the issue is one of the competency of veterinary school graduates.