Larry Covelli braced himself when he saw Jim Moroski walking toward him. Moroski found a reason to argue with everything—from how the IACUC should be run to the color of the sky. This time Moroski wanted to talk about his surgery course.

“You know, Larry,” Moroski said, “some of my colleagues and I have developed a new method of teaching surgery to medical residents that is going to dramatically reduce the time they need to spend in their general surgical residency. We're going to use dogs and pigs and get this program going in a few weeks. Do you think you can push it through the IACUC?”

“Slow down, Jim,” said Covelli. “We haven't used animals for surgery training in more years than I can remember, and I don't think it's a change in policy that would happen overnight. Furthermore, it's a school policy, not my policy.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Moroski replied, “but we've already had surgery faculty meetings about this and everybody agrees we can shorten the residency by a full year. Sally Nuñez supports this and said the Dean gave it the go ahead at this morning's Chairs meeting, assuming it got through the IACUC. If we could cut the residency by a year we'd be way ahead of the curve and we'll attract some of the best residents. It's also going to revolutionize basic surgical training, so this is important stuff.”

“It's also a major political hot potato, whether the Dean supports it or not, and you know that Jim,” countered Covelli. “There's no way I'm going to push this through the IACUC and there's no way I'm even going to put this on the agenda until I talk with the Dean. And if he does support this, you're going to have to be there to describe—in great detail—why the existing training for surgeons isn't enough.”

Two weeks later Moroski met with the IACUC and explained his protocol. Deep down, Covelli didn't want the application to pass, but the Committee seemed enthusiastic. For his part, Covelli argued to little effect that most other medical schools did not have a live-animal basic surgical training course, that if the proposal passed it would be a public relations disaster for the school, and that there was no 'market research' to see if other schools would consider cutting their residencies or use the proposed surgical training program.

What do you think? Should Covelli go over the Dean's head? If the proposed protocol is approved and the training program lives up to its promise, would this vindicate the decision of the IACUC?

Response to Protocol Review Scenario: IACUC's authority

Response to Protocol Review Scenario: Don't get personal

Response to Protocol Review Scenario: No justification