The first time I heard about “One Medicine,” I was sitting in a
veterinary oncologist’s office trying to figure out my dog
Taylor’s odds for survival as he fought bone cancer. Mona
Rosenberg, Taylor’s doctor, didn’t call it “One Medicine,” but
she explained that the numbers she was giving me were based on
research done to help humans. Even if conducted on animals, the
research has as its goal curing diseases that affect people. But
humans and animals suffer from the same diseases; that’s why we
can use animal models to figure out how a particular treatment
might affect people, and vice-versa. In 2001, when Rosenberg and
I had this conversation, I thought that the veterinarians were a
bit ahead of the human scientists; they got the connection. I
wasn’t sure the human-centric people researchers did. Then, in
September 2008, I attended a fundraiser for the American College
of Veterinary Internal Medicine Foundation and heard the words
“One Medicine” for the first time. They were spoken by Richard
LeCouteur, a bo