At what point does "helping" a seriously ill or injured animal only cause more pain and suffering?  How much pain and suffering is justified, in the name of veterinary education? I'm thinking of Barbaro, the beautiful racer who shattered his right hind leg during last year's Preakness Stakes on May 30th.  Barbaro endured hours of surgery the following day, when a titanium plate and 27 screws were used to literally screw his leg back together. 

He was re-operated July 3, to replace two bent screws and to insert three new ones across his pastern joint.  Two days later, the sole of the opposing hind foot was found to be infected, and three days after that, the entire original titanium plate and many of the original screws were replaced in yet another surgery.  Later that July, Barbaro was found to have laminitis, an exquisitely painful hoof condition, and eighty percent of his left hind hoof (the hoof on the good hind leg) was removed.  Two months later, the hoof had barely re-grown at all.

Despite continued intensive therapy of all kinds, by January Barbaro had severe changes to the foot of his good hind leg.  Repeatedly that month, more and more of the damaged tissue in that hoof was removed as his coffin bone continued to rotate. Near the end of the month, his right hind foot developed a deep abscess; his cast was removed and an external fixation "cage" was placed.  Two steel pins were drilled through his cannon bone, to further stabilize the fractured leg and reduce weight bearing on that hoof.

Now, Barbaro had two severely affected hind legs, and his vets were becoming concerned about the health of his front feet - those hooves now had laminitis, too.  After he failed to improve after this last surgery, he was finally euthanized on January 29th at 10:30 in the morning, after a miserable night of no sleep and visible severe pain.

DVM magazine quotes the Chief of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine's Widener Hospital at New Bolton Center as saying Barbaro's experience wasn't for naught.  "It's the way science works, the way medicine works.  We expect to get better at what we do" [if a horse with the same injuries came in tomorrow].  Another equine veterinarian, who was not involved with Barbaro's care but who works for the American Veterinary Medical Association as a medical writer, said: "Even after death, Barbaro is going to champion laminitis and orthopedic research.  Barbaro is going to help a lot of horses because of all the notoriety he brought.  If that really happens, it's going to be an amazing legacy."

What do you think?  Was it right for a horse to go through nine months of misery for the learning opportunities provided to veterinarians?  Is this the way good science should work?  Would Barbaro have agreed that any inspiration provided by the life he had to live from May 20, 2006 through January 29, 2007 was an appropriate legacy?