Veterinary students practising treating a calving model cow at Massey University's School of Veterinary Science in Palmerston North. Photo: Supplied/ Massey University School of Veterinary Science
Dog vomit, fake blood, and a full size fake cow have won Massey's vet teachers an international prize for their work replacing live animals with models in the classroom.
Animal testing is strictly regulated by law in Aotearoa, but animals used for science and teaching purposes are exempt from the Animal Welfare Act.
However Massey University veterinary teachers have spent many years scouring Palmerston North looking for creative alternative materials to build animal models, instead of using real animals in their classes.
The Lush Prize, the largest prize recognising work to end or replace animal testing was awarded to the team for their work to completely eliminate the use of real sheep in a fundamental surgical teaching class.
Head of the School of Veterinary Science Professor Jon Huxley told Saturday Morning they're constantly trying to devise ways to reduce reliance on real animals in teaching, and the work has been going on over many years.
Massey's fake animals win big
From basic jerry-rigged models made from bits and bobs collected from all over, through to complex 'high fidelity' ones like Harriot the Hereford, a "very realistic calving simulator".
"Working with animals is fundamental to veterinary education in exactly the same way as practising skills on people is in human medicine. Our students have to learn with animals to learn the skills they need ... the only alternative would have been to operate for the first time on client-owned animals, which is far from ideal," Huxley said.
Harriot the Hereford, the calving model, cost $75,000 imported from Canada, and allows a flexible model calf to be positioned inside of the fake cow in any of the ways a tiny calf could become wedged in real life.
"Working with these models allows our students first of all to identify how the calf is mispresented, and then to learn the skills to reposition the calf so that it can be born safely," Huxley said.
The staff have built a range of basic models for suturing practice, using materials such as silicon and different grades of leather from DIY and second hand stores.
"Suturing skin for example, whilst it's a basic skill it's actually very complicated when you begin, there's a lot of decision-making, there's a lot of motor control you need to learn, and of course we have the extra complexity that we're dealing with cows, sheep, pigs, horse, cat, dog a great big range of species.
"At one end you might have the cat with very fine skin where you're using very fine needles through to the skin of a cow which is quite literally leather, and the approach and skills you need are completely different."
"Medical grade silicon has completely changed this and it really gives a much more tissue-like feel, and we can actually now also set some of these models up with a coloured fluid to represent blood so that students can for example take blood samples or put an intravenous catheter into a vein. So they vary a lot between not realistic through to much much more realistic."
Analysing concocted fake dog vomit means students can learn to diagnose canine illnesses, then dispense fake drugs from a dummy pharmacy, and give intravenous therapy to the fake dog by programming a pump with the right amount of fluid over the right amount of time.
"So the dummy dog receives the right amount of fluid over the right amount of time to rehydrate itself."
Some of the teaching models have been able to be purchased. (File photo). Photo: holsim.co.nz
Huxley says while they work to substitute models for real animals for the most invasive exercises, real animals are still used extensively, and help the students learn handling and examination.
"You have to progress on from models to examining the real thing."
But the models mean students already have crucial skills mastered before they have to use them on real animals.
"It really creates fantastic opportunities in our teaching. Building up some of these complex skills takes time, and what you really want to do is take students on a journey of progressively building up their skills.
"What the introduction of the models allows us to do is take the first steps when students are learning to handle instruments and examine things, where to place their hands and which equipment to pick - we can do that in a really tightly controlled environment."
Huxley says a movement to replace the use of real animals in teaching is taking place in all over the world, with veterinary teachers sharing ideas between themselves internationally.
Money awarded from the Lush Prize will be reinvested into the clinical skills models at Massey, Huxley says.