Chemically Prepared Cat Cadavers in Teaching of Surgical Technique ‐ Evaluation by Students of a Veterinary Medicine Course

Abstract

It is essential to humanely use live animals in research and teaching activities and consequently, to search for alternative methods that do not prejudice academic or scientific efforts. The objective of this work was to evaluate the opinions of veterinary undergraduate students as to the acceptability of using chemically prepared cat cadavers to teach surgical methods. Ten cadavers of cats were fixed with ethylic alcohol with 5% of glycerine (120ml/kg) for 60 days and preserved in 30% sodium chloride aqueous solution up to one semester. During the conservation time, students were asked to complete an evaluation form at the end of the surgery classes. The students assigned a score of 1 (very bad) to 10 (excellent) to the resistance of the skin (7.94±1.60). muscles (7.98±1.39). stomach (8.12±1.33). intestine (7.54±1.72). and urinary bladder (7.58±1.79) to incision/suture and the malleability of intestines (7.78±1.58), spleen (7.34±2.24) and liver (7.14±2.28) were evaluated. The average score was 7.68 ± 1.74, and 92% of the students were found to be in favor of the use of cadavers. In addition, 90% of the students favored initial surgical training with chemically preserved cadavers, followed by classes including live animals from the Veterinary Hospital who came for elective surgery, such as an orchiectomy or ovariohysterectomy.Support or Funding InformationFAPESP, process 2015/08259‐9.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.