'What is One Medicine' explained by Professor Noel Fitzpatrick

Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc.Aug 20 2024

A link to the news story on Humanimal Trust’s website can be found here. The following is a transcript of the Humanimal Trust’s video.

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. Simply put, there is no legal platform or legal framework within which to facilitate this exchange of knowledge and drugs and implants.

To share know how would be entirely rational and the vast majority of people are not aware it doesn't happen. Human doctors and veterinarians almost never talk to each other for the mutual benefit of their patients. In my experience, most doctors and vets don't ever even think about this gaping chasm because both professions are only concerned with the species they themselves treat.

Now, One Medicine is based upon convergence of effort by human and animal practitioners for faster innovation and knowledge exchange across both medical professions. This would ensure all species can benefit equally from scientific advances and medical innovation.

Knowledge exchange between disciplines would accelerate innovation, providing superior diagnostics, treatments, and cures for all patients - animal and human. We want to see a world where a strict ethical framework can be formulated so that companion animals can participate in clinical research with the informed consent of their guardians. And in this way, naturally occurring disease can be treated - as it is in human clinical trials - with the aim of providing improved therapeutic options for both humans and animals. Research and patient trials can run in parallel.

We believe that one day, this kind of methodology and research, that is an equal two way street, could obviate the need for experiments, whereby disease is induced in a healthy animal purely for human benefit. One Medicine aims to ensure a fair deal for humans and animals, always remembering that humans are animals with vastly similar logic and genetic makeup.

One Medicine advocates the study of diseases which will help prevent humans from contracting diseases from other animals, but also help animals suffering from those self same diseases. I mean imagine vets, doctors, nurses and scientific researchers working together for the benefit of all living beings. That is possible and that is why Humanimal Trust exists.