Veterinary surgical skills require practice before application to clinical patients. The evolution of training methods — from cadavers and live animals to simulators and clinical partnerships — has significant welfare implications.
Veterinary surgical training welfare has followed the same trajectory as research animal welfare: from acceptance of significant animal use as necessary to active development and validation of alternatives that produce equivalent training outcomes. Surgical simulators that replicate tissue resistance and response reduce the need for cadavers in initial skill development. Shelter-based training that provides genuine clinical service while teaching surgical skills to students addresses both training and community welfare goals. Cadavers from shelter euthanasia, while involving death, avoid the additional welfare cost of purpose-bred and purpose-killed training animals. The remaining question is which skills genuinely require live animal experience that simulators cannot provide — a question the field is actively working to minimize through simulator development rather than accept as fixed.