What You Might Not Know
Primum Non
Nocere
Or, How I Became a Good Veterinarian in Spite of "Dog
Lab"
by Holly Cheever, DVM
NEAVS Board Member
 I
am fortunate to practice a profession which gives me enormous
pleasure, intellectual challenge, and even spiritual fulfillment.
However, the path to gaining my credentials was laced with
episodes that I found ethically disturbing and very sad. In
our first year at the Veterinary College, I participated in
labs in physiology that involved sacrificing rabbits, guinea
pigs, and dogs. I felt that I had participated in the wasting
of life for a learning experience whose value was debatable
at best.
Our third year curriculum gave us the chance to learn
surgery on healthy ponies, sheep, and dogs, which finally
gave us a taste of actual veterinary practice after years
of lectures without "hands-on" experience. We were
divided into groups of three and assigned one pony, one sheep,
and two dogs upon whom to perform various surgeries. At the
end of the allotted time, the animals were to be euthanised
in order to ensure that they would never fall into inhumane
hands after all they had gone through. No arguments from the
students could change what we felt to be an unfair policy.
My partners and I had a beagle, fresh from the impersonal
world of the breeding colony, to care for and upon whom to
perform two or three procedures, including a common ear drainage
surgery. At first, this beagle was ecstatically happy to see
us as we lavished him with the attention and affection he
had been lacking all of his life, and we in turn loved his
sweet and enthusiastic demeanor. We did two surgeries on him
with a few days in between for recovery, and performed daily
uncomfortable dressing changes on his throbbing ear. His manner
toward us changed from heartfelt exuberance to hesitant affection.
One morning when I came to take him out for examination and
exercise, he stayed at the back of his cage, cringing and
trembling and clearly dreading my presence. It broke my heart
to realize that in the process of learning to comfort and
relieve the suffering of non-human animals, I had become terrifying
to the ones I most wanted to heal. He was euthanised shortly
thereafter.
The dictum to which all medical practitioners are supposed
to adhere is primum non nocere—first do no harm.
How could my surgery and physiology lab possibly have exemplified
this principle? I have no hesitation in stating that I learned
nothing helpful from those labs that could not have been taught
in a more humane manner. I am proud to say that my alma
mater, Cornell, helped to lead the way in eliminating
the majority of the first year labs and in providing alternatives
for any student in any procedure involving live animals. For
surgery, third year students may participate in a program
with a local animal shelter to spay and neuter their population,
which increases each animal’s chance for adoption while
teaching the student the most common surgery in companion
animal medicine. This alternative in a "win-win"
situation, in fact, in which all participants benefit.
I am grateful to be a veterinary practitioner and derive
enormous pleasure from helping and healing my patients. As
for that wretched beagle to whom I owe so much, all I can
say is that there are some wounds to one’s psyche that
never heal. He deserved so much better than what he received.
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