By Kevin Coughlin
Morristown Medical Center, which announced Thursday that it will halt performing emergency training procedures on live dogs, has added more details.
Reacting to online comments by outraged readers, hospital spokeswoman Elaine Andrecovich on Friday emphasized that none of these procedures–which she said involved four animals, twice a year–ever occurred on hospital property.
“We are not housing any animals, nor have live animals been used for medical training over the past several months as we closely evaluated this program,” said Andrecovich, reiterating that this training for medical doctors was conducted at an “off-site, unaffiliated accredited research facility.”
She did not identify the facility. But she said “there are not and never have been dogs onsite” at Morristown Medical Center for training purposes.
Therapy dogs are deployed throughout the hospital to buoy spirits of patients and staff, according to hospital President Trish O’Keefe, a dog owner and advocate for pet therapy.
A billboard campaign by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit based in the nation’s capital, has targeted the hospital’s use of dogs for medical training.
Dogs sometimes survive the practice procedures, but all are euthanized afterward, a committee spokesperson told NJ.com.
Andrecovich cited a “longstanding practice of providing the best possible training for emergency medicine residents” as Morristown Medical Center.
“Historically, that education included a specialized emergency medicine training session for uncommon, human life-saving procedures and involved the use of four total live animals annually,” she said.
Not anymore.
“Our medical education leaders have reviewed alternate practices, and we have determined that moving forward we will use both simulators and cadavers for this specialized training,” she said in her revised statement.
Nearly 70 readers reacted to Thursday’s story on MorristownGreen.com and its Facebook page.
“This is disturbing! Shocked that they would do this,” Linda Gallo Colella wrote of the animal procedures.
“Horrifying that they would do this,” said April Woltjen Connolly.
A few readers praised the hospital, winner of numerous awards and on many “best of” lists, for responding swiftly to public concerns.
But Kieran Kole said he was “appalled” on several levels, from the “horrifying” use of live dogs, to lead contamination of the hospital’s water earlier this year, to what he claimed was the hospital’s failure to notify hundreds of women about mammograms that identified “dense breasts.”
“This is a requirement by state law to inform women who were found to have this condition. This being a facility where people would expect to find the highest in professionalism, ethics, compassion and following the law. Very very disheartening and disappointing,” Kole wrote.
We have asked the hospital about this and will post an update when we hear more.
UPDATE:
“We are investigating this claim and are in the process of conducting a thorough analysis of our records,” Andrecovich said late on Friday afternoon.
The state Department of Health has received no complaints about Morristown Medical Center’s mammography reporting, department spokeswoman Dawn Thomas said.
In May 2014, the department informed hospitals and ambulatory care facilities of a new state law mandating that all mammography reports include information about breast density, which can make cancer more difficult to detect and may be a risk factor for breast cancer.
