Tom Wilemon

twilemon@tennessean.com

An animal rights organization plans to report Vanderbilt University to a federal agency for needlessly using live sheep to train doctors, but a spokesman for its medical center said the complaint is inaccurate.

However, Vanderbilt did not deny using animals in the training.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on Tuesday released a copy of a letter that it planned to send Wednesday to a U.S. Department of Agriculture official responsible for regulating animal welfare.

“The university uses sheep in its emergency medicine residency program to teach procedural skills despite the widespread availability and implementation of educationally superior nonanimal training methods,” Dr. John J. Pippin, director of academic affairs for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, wrote in the letter.

John Howser, a spokesman for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said its training protocols had already been reviewed by the USDA with no issues of concern raised.

“There are inaccuracies in the letter the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine provided to The Tennessean,” Howser said in an email. “The training protocol identified in the letter, taught periodically at VUMC, uses a combination of non-animal (simulated) and animal models to teach life-saving techniques to emergency medicine first responders who work in the field saving the lives of Middle Tennesseans every day. A USDA veterinary medical officer periodically performs focused inspections on our teaching/training protocols, including this protocol. During inspections of this training protocol the USDA closely reviewed the rationale for using animals during portions of the training and found nothing of concern.”

Reach Tom Wilemon at 615-726-5961 and on Twitter @TomWilemon.