Page 37 - Clinical Small Animal Internal Medicine

1 The Concept of One Medicine 5

travel, and trade in addition to their profound health movement and a new concept of community health,
VetBooks.ir costs and consequences. including veterinary medicine, is emerging.
Public health and animal health are no longer the
Contemporary societal issues such as global trade and
commerce, movements and migrations of populations,
changes and insults to our ecosystems, population domain of any single discipline, profession or boundary;
rather, they require the work of epidemiologists, clini-
growth in developing countries, the Livestock Revolution, cians, ecologists, veterinarians, entomologists, engi-
and disruptions of the environment are helping to create neers, and many more experts coming together to
a complex, nonlinear and disruptive world that is riskier provide new insights and perspectives using new scien-
and impacts health in the domains of people, animals, tific and technological tools. Addressing, predicting, and
and our environment. The ability to improve and opti- preventing diseases certainly demand the richness of
mize health in the future will depend on working in these new scientific and medical teams.
three domains concurrently, holistically, and synergisti- For veterinary medicine, our horizon has never been
cally. A One Health mindset and accompanying actions richer nor our possibilities more promising. Our profes-
are now a necessity and no longer just a concept. In order sion’s challenge is to be relevant and meet the changing
to reconcile our significant contemporary challenges and needs of society regarding public health, global food sys-
threats with our habitual, narrow and traditional think- tems, ecosystem management, and biomedical research.
ing in medicine, new levels of thinking across disciplines One Health is the framework, mindset, and new collective
and professions will become the new normal. purpose to help define our expanding responsibilities,
Veterinarians are becoming essential leaders in this including, and beyond, traditional clinical medicine.

Reference

1 Institute of Medicine Committee on Emerging Microbial Emergence, Detection, and Response. Washington, DC:
Threats to Health in the 21st Century, Smolinski M, National Academies Press, 2003.
Hamburg MA, Lederburg J. Microbial Threats to Health: