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One Medicine
One Medicine
The Link Between Human and Animal Health and Medicine
By Dr. Jeffrey Toll, VMD, DACVIM (Small Animal Internal Medicine). Dr. Toll is Chairman of the ACVIM Education and Research Committee as well as a current Board Member of the ACVIM Foundation and its Past President.
One Medicine (OM) is a term which acknowledges the fundamental similarities between living species as it relates to the practice of medicine. It's a concise way of saying... "animals and people are more similar than different."
Simple examples that reflect OM include: how one infectious agent, such as Salmonella, can cause disease in multiple species of animals; the fact that we can use the same drugs for many different animals (penicillin for example); and how some brain tumors in dogs and humans are so similar that even a pathologist looking at these tumors under the microscope cannot tell whether they are canine or human tumors.
OM gives us a unique perspective on how we think about veterinary research. Using the brain tumor example, it is easy to appreciate that the study of dogs with spontaneous brain tumors may be applicable to the understanding of the same tumor in a human. In this example, the dog becomes a spontaneous animal model of a human disease. Many other examples exist. The power of this idea lies in the fact that these spontaneous or natural models are a far more accurate way to evaluate a disease or condition than other models using laboratory animals such as mice, where the disease is artificially induced and therefore not as accurate a reflection of natural disease (see Common Cancers, Common Cures for more information).
Additionally, OM takes a global view of health by recognizing that the health of the environment is fundamental to the health of all living species. Air and water quality, ecosystem health, food quality, and the health of all living things are interdependent, not independent. Therefore, OM is the recognition that human health, animal health, and environmental health must be considered together if each is to be fully understood. Groups such as AVMA prefer the term One Health since, in its broadest sense, this concept goes beyond the practice of clinical medicine.
It is important to point out that ACVIM Diplomates (specialists in the fields of Oncology, Neurology, Cardiology, Small Animal Internal Medicine and Large Animal Internal Medicine) are the veterinarians ideally qualified to diagnose, treat, and conduct studies on these conditions in animals. The ACVIM Foundation funds studies conducted by these veterinary clinician scientists and by supporting our Grant Program you are in turn supporting the pioneering work of the One Medicine model.
