PETA Donates TraumaMan Simulators to Support National Program in Saudi Arabia
Cutting open goats and sheep as part of learning how to treat humans’ life-threatening injuries is cruel and highly ineffective. Thanks to PETA’s donation of four advanced TraumaMan human-patient simulators, that archaic practice will no longer be part of Saudi Arabia’s Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) program.
The TraumaMan simulation models, which just arrived at Saudi Arabia’s ATLS National Office, are human surrogates that will prevent 12 to 20 animals each year from being mutilated and killed in archaic trauma training drills.
Saudi Arabia’s ATLS training historically used sheep and goats who endured invasive procedures as part of human trauma skills practice. Typically, they were anesthetized and cut open to simulate human injuries, such as chest, abdominal, and vascular trauma. After the procedures, the animals were killed. PETA’s donation and the signed formal agreement ensure that every ATLS course in Saudi Arabia, across more than 40 accredited sites, will now adopt humane, modern, animal-free training methods. The TraumaMan manikins will be used in Riyadh, Tabuk, Hail, Al Qassim, Al Jouf, Hafer Albatin, Al Qunfudah, Al Madinah, Jeddah, Makkah, Taif, Najran, Jazan, and Asir, as well as any new sites open for ATLS courses.
The simulators, manufactured by Simulab Corporation, will make a meaningful difference for animals and set a compassionate example for similar medical training programs around the world.
We are grateful for PETA’s generous donation, which supports Saudi Arabia’s ATLS program in its commitment to replace the use of sheep and goats with durable TraumaMan models that better replicate human anatomy. This advancement strengthens training quality while eliminating animal suffering in ATLS courses. Thank you, PETA!”
— Dr. Saud Al Turki, chair of Saudi Arabia’s Advanced Trauma Life Support program
PETA’s TraumaMan Donations Spare Animals’ Lives
PETA has donated 128 TraumaMan simulators, worth several million dollars, to ATLS programs in 24 countries—including Bangladesh, Iraq, Sudan, and Albania —sparing the lives of thousands of animals and providing surgeons with superior, human-relevant training. Studies show that doctors who learned lifesaving surgical skills on human simulators are more proficient than those who trained on animals.
In 2019, a PETA scientist and a surgeon published a study in the Journal of Surgical Education that found that our TraumaMan donation program had “successfully transformed the surgical skills laboratories of … international ATLS programs to replace animal use with non-animal simulation models that are more anatomically realistic, cost less, and allow trainees to repeat surgical skills until proficiency.”
What You Can Do
No animal should be tormented and killed in a laboratory. Please urge officials at the U.S. Navy and the Department of War to end deadly and pointless decompression tests on animals in favor of superior, human-relevant, non-animal research methods:
