Medical and veterinary students have traditionally trained on live animals or recently killed specimens. Humane alternatives are increasingly available and effective, reducing animal use in education.
Animals used in medical training experience fear, pain, and distress — often without anaesthesia in countries with weaker regulations. Dogs and pigs are used for intubation, catheterisation, and surgical technique practice; frogs and rats for dissection. The welfare cost is substantial, and is increasingly unjustifiable given the quality of modern simulators, virtual reality training platforms, and ethically sourced cadaver tissue. Educational institutions in higher-income countries are progressively replacing live animal use, but many lower-income countries lack access to alternatives. Improving access to training simulators globally would be transformative.