A link to the news story on Humanimal Trust’s website can be found here . I'm a veterinary surgeon, and I have dedicated my life to trying to provide the best possible treatments for my companion animal patients. I'm not a human doctor, but I could have chosen to become one, and if I had, I would clearly want the best treatments for my human patients, but our current medical system does not allow the availability of the best treatments that science can offer for the patients to whom I have dedicated my life.
This isn't fair, especially when animals give their lives in experiments to provide the best treatments for humans like me. The central goal of my life is to re-dress this profound injustice through the philosophy of One Medicine. Now One Medicine is a concept whereby human and animal medicine advances hand in hand with vets, doctors, nurses, researchers all collaborating to ensure that humans and animals benefit from equal and sustainable medical progress, but not at the expense of an animal's life.
Cross-disciplinary collaboration can bring about transformative advances in healthcare, providing medical knowledge and treatments for both animals and humans. We need One Medicine. From my own perspective as a veterinarian, I can't treat my patients with many recent medical advancements that were originally tested on experimental animals for human benefit and equally, progress I have made with the implants I use in veterinary medicine cannot be shared with human patients.
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