What is a medicine explained by Professor Noel Fitzpatrick

What is a medicine explained by Professor Noel Fitzpatrick

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

Humanimal Trust Short Film 1 – What is medicine?Play

I am a veterinarian and have dedicated my life to trying to provide the best treatments possible for my companion animal patients. I am not a human doctor, but I could have chosen to become one, and if I had, I 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 to the patients I have dedicated my life to. This is not fair, especially when animals give their lives in experiments to provide the best treatments for people like me.

The central goal of my life is to re-accelerate this deep injustice through the philosophy of medicine. Now a medicine is a concept in which human and animal medicine work together with veterinarians, doctors, nurses and researchers to ensure that humans and animals benefit from equal and sustainable medical advances, but not at the expense of an animal's life.

Interdisciplinary collaboration can lead to transformative advances in healthcare, providing medical knowledge and treatments to both animals and humans. We need medicine.

From my own perspective as a veterinarian, I cannot treat my patients with many recent medical advances that were originally tested on experimental animals for human benefit. patients. Simply put, there is no legal platform or legal framework to facilitate this exchange of knowledge, drugs and implants.

To share knowing how it would be completely rational and the vast majority of people are unaware that 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 veterinarians never even think about this gaping divide, as both professions only deal with the species they treat.

Now a medicine based on the convergence of efforts by human and animal practitioners for faster innovation and knowledge sharing in both medical professions. This would ensure that all types of scientific advances and medical innovations can benefit equally.

Sharing knowledge across disciplines would accelerate innovation and deliver superior diagnostics, treatments and cures for all patients – animal and human. We would like to see a world in which a strong ethical framework can be formulated so that companion animals can participate in clinical research with the consent of their guardians. In this way, naturally occurring diseases – such as human ones in clinical trials – can be treated to provide better therapeutic options for humans and animals. Research and patient trials can be carried out in parallel.

We believe that one day this type of methodology and research, which is a two-way street, could avoid the need for experiments in which disease is induced in a healthy animal solely for human benefit. A drug aims to ensure a fair deal for humans and animals, always remembering that humans are animals with very similar logic and genetic make-up.

A medicine advocates the study of diseases that contribute to humans contracting diseases from other animals, but also helps animals suffering from these same diseases. I mean, imagine veterinarians, doctors, nurses, and scientific researchers working together for the benefit of all living things. This is possible and that is why humanimal trust exists.

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