PhD student asks for help after killing mice daily in research

A PhD student who kills two or three mice every day for research recently asked for suggestions on how to cope with the distress it causes. Advice given to the student included getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, and memorializing the euthanized animals. Offering this kind of support is similar to telling someone who witnessed animal cruelty to simply practise self-care. While such measures might help protect the student's mental well-being, they also risk treating a real ethical conflict as a simple resilience problem.

Context

Ethical concerns around animal research often create difficult moral dilemmas for young scientists and students. Addressing these challenges requires looking at systemic practices rather than just individual coping strategies.