WKSU Stories

South Pointe Hospital Ends Involvement with Dog Surgery Program

Ideastream Public Media | By Mitch Felan

Published August 27, 2017 at 11:51 AM EDT

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine created a billboard campaign in response to the training (pictured) and placed four in Northeast Ohio.

The Cleveland Clinic’s South Pointe Hospital will end its involvement with a program that allowed some residents to practice surgery on live dogs.

Earlier this week, a national non-profit group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine placed four billboards in Northeast Ohio calling for an end to the program.

Dr. John Pippin is the group’s director of academic affairs.

“(The public) knows that you’re using animals that are typically family pets, and you’re cutting into them and you’re eventually killing them to do training that is readily done using purpose-designed human simulators. And that’s a bit perplexing.”

South Pointe Hospital says it was already planning on ending the training with the dogs, provided by NEOMED, later this year, but decided to expedite that.

In a statement, NEOMED says while it does not use live animals for its own curriculum, it does allow outside entities, like South Pointe, to do so while using its facilities.