Iowa Medical School Ends Painful Dog Nipple Exercise

October 2001

PETA wrote to Des Moines University-Osteopathic Medical Center after receiving reports that medical students were cutting off the nipples of live dogs and then sewing them back on as a surgery exercise. According to students who participated in this exercise, dogs woke up during “surgery” and were kept alive for up to two weeks without receiving pain medication.

In one evaluation of the exercise, a student wrote: “The poor dog had to suffer a week with the botch job that most of us performed, including myself. One person in my group practically eviscerated [the nipple].”

After we placed an action alert on our Web site asking people to write Des Moines University (DMU), DMU made the decision to end this cruel and senseless training exercise.