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10 years ago,
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I got a phone call
that changed my life.
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At the time, I was
a cardiologist
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at UCLA,
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specializing in cardiac imaging techniques.
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The call came from a veterinarian
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at the Los Angeles Zoo
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An elderly female chimpanzee
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had woken up with a facial droop
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and the veterinarians were worried
that she had had a stroke
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They asked if I could come
to the zoo
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and image the animal's heart
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to look for a possible cardiac cause
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now, to be clear
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North American Zoos are staffed
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by highly qualified, board certified veterinarians
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who take outstanding care of animal patients
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but occasionally, they do reach into the human medical community
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particularly for some speciality consultation
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and i was one of the lucky physicians
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who was invited to help
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I had a chance to rule out
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a stroke in this chimpanzee
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and make sure that this gorilla
didn't have a torn aorta
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Evaluate this macaw for a heart murmur
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make sure that this californian sea lion's
paracardium wasn't inflammed
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and in this picture,
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I'm listening to the heart of a lion
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after a lifesaving collaborative procedure with
veteranarians and physicians
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we drained 700 cc's of fluid
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from the sack in which
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this lion's heart was contained
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and this procedure,
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which i have done on many human patients
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was identical with the exception of that paw and that tail
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now, most of the time
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i was working at ucla medical center
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with physicians, discussing
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symptoms, and diagnoses and treatments
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for my human patients
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but some of the time
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i was working at the
Los Angeles Zoo with veteranarians
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discussing symptoms, diagnoses and treatments
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for their animal patients
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and occasionally, on the very same day
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i went on rounds at ucla medical center
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and at the los angeles zoo
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and here's what started coming
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into very clear focus for me
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physicians and veterinarians were essentially
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taking care of the same disorders in their animal and human patients
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congestive heart failutre, brain tumors,
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lukemia, diabetes, arthritis, ALS
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breast cancer,
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even psychiatric symptoms like depression,
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anxiety, compulsions, eating disoders
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and self injury
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now, I've got a confession to make
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even though i studied comparative physiology
and evolutionary biology,
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as an undergrad,
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i had even written my senior thesis
on darwinian theory,
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learning about the significant
overlap between
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the disorders of animals and humans
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it came as a much needed wake up call for me
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so i started wondering,
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with all of these overlaps,
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how was it that i had never
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thought to ask a veteranarian
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or consult the veterinary literature
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for insights into one
of my human patients?
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why had i never, nor
had any of my physicians friends
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and colleagues, who i asked,
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ever attended a veterinary conference?
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for that matter, why was any of this a surprise?
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i mean look, every single physicians
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accepts some biological connection
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between animals and huamns
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every medication that we perscribe
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or that we've taken ourselves
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or we've given to our families
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has first been tested on an animal
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but there's something very different about
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giving an animal a medication or a human disease
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and the animal developing congestive heart failure
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or diabetes or breats cancer on their own
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now maybe some of the surprise
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comes from the increasing
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separation in our world
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between the urban and the non-urban
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you know, we hear about these city kids who
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think that wool grows on trees
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or that cheese comes from a plant
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well today's human hospitals
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are turning into increasingly
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these gleaming cathedrals
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of technology
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and this creates a psychological
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distance between the human
patients who are being treated there
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and animal patients who
are living in oceans
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and farms and jungles.
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but i think there's an even deeper reason
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physicians and scientists,
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we accept intellectually that our species,
homo sapiens
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is merely one species, no more unique
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or special than any other
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but in our hearts, we don't completely BELIEVE THAT
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I feel it myself when I'm listening to motzart
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or looking at pictures of
the Mars Rover
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on my macbook
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i feel that tug of human exceptionalism
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even as i recognize the
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scientifically isolating cost
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of seeing ourselves as a
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superior species apart
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well, I'm trying these days
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when i see a human patient now,
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i always ask, "what do the animal
doctors know about this problem
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that I don't know?"
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and "might i be taking better care
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of my human patient if I saw
them as a human animal patient?"
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here are a few examples of the kind
of exciting connections
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that this kind of thinking
has led me to
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fear induced heart fialure
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around the year 2000,
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human cardiologists discovered
emotionally induced heart failure
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it was described in a gambling father
who had lost his life's savings
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with the roll of a dice
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in a bride who had
been left at the alter
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but it turns out that this
"new human diagnosis"
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was neither new, nor
was it uniquely human
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veteranarians had been diagnosing
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treating, and even preventing emotinally
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induced symptoms in animals
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ranging from monkeys to flamingos
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to deer to rabits
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since the 1970s
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how many human lives might have been saved
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if this veterinary knowledge had been
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put into the hands of ER docs and cardiologists?
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self injury
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some human patients harm themselves
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some pluck out patches of hair
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others actually cut themselves
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some animal patients also harm themselves
Csaba Lóki
There migh be a typo in the English original at 12:57
"overies" -> "ovaries"