Dear PCRM supporter,

Your efforts to help animals have paid off. In November we asked you to help end the cruel and unnecessary use of live pigs in Albany Medical Center’s trauma training course. More than 4,000 of you took action—and the medical center listened! Yesterday, Albany Medical Center informed PCRM that it will use only simulators in its Advanced Trauma Life Support course. This means that every trauma training course in New York state is now animal-free!

Your hard work helped end animal suffering and improve medical education in New York. Now we need your help to do the same thing in North Dakota. While more than 90 percent of United States and Canadian facilities no longer use animals for Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) training, MeritCare Medical Center in Fargo continues to use live pigs for its course, despite the availability of nonanimal alternatives like the TraumaMan System from Simulab. The hospital’s next ATLS course is scheduled for April 27.

Please e-mail, call, or write to MeritCare President and CEO Roger Gilbertson, M.D., and politely ask him to end animal use in the hospital’s ATLS course. Being polite is the most effective way to help these animals. Send an automatic e-mail.

Roger Gilbertson, M.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
MeritCare Health System
P.O. Box MC
Fargo, ND 58122
E-mail: roger.gilbertson@meritcare.com
Phone: 701-234-6960

Last month Dr. Gilbertson announced that he would soon be retiring. Help us ensure that he makes this important, compassionate decision before leaving MeritCare.

Learn more about the TraumaMan System. If you have any questions, please contact me at rmerkley@pcrm.org. Thanks so much for your help!

Best regards,
 
Ryan Merkley
Manager of Humane Education Programs