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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
cardiologist at UCLA,
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specializing in cardiac
imaging techniques.
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The call came from a veterinarian
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, North American
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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
who was invited to help.
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I had a chance to rule out
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, 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 CCs of
fluid from the sack
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in which this lion's
heart was contained.
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And this procedure, 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, I was
working at the UCLA Medical Center
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with physicians, discussing symptoms
and diagnoses and treatments
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for my human patients.
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But some of the time, I was
working at the Los Angeles Zoo
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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 the
UCLA Medical Center
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and at the Los Angeles Zoo,
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and here's what started coming
into very clear focus for me.
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Physicians and veterinarians
were essentially taking care
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of the same disorders in :their
animal and human patients
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congestive heart failure, brain tumors,
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lukemia, diabetes,
arthritis, ALS, breast cancer,
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even psychiatric symptoms like depression,
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anxiety, compulsions, eating disorders
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
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between 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,
with all of these overlaps,
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how was it that I had never
thought to ask a veterinarian,
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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 physician
friends 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 physician
accepts some biological connection
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between animals and humans.
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Every medication that we prescribe
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
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about 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
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
of technology.
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And this creates a psychological
distance between the human patients
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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, we accept,
intellectually that our species
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homo sapien, is merely one species
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no more unique 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 on my MacBook.
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I feel that tug of
human exceptionalism,
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even as I recognize the
scientifically isolating cost
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of seeing ourselves as a
superior species apart.
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Well, I'm trying these days.
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When I see a human patient
now, I always ask,
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"what do the animal doctors know
about this problem that I don't know?"
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and "Might I be taking better
care of my human patient
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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 t
thinking has led me to:
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fear-induced heart failure.
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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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Veterinarians had been diagnosing,
treating, and even preventing
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emotionally-induced
symptoms in animals,
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ranging from monkeys to flamingos,
to deer to rabbits,
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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 put into the hands
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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.
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There are birds that pluck out feathers.
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There are stallions that repetitively
bite their flanks until they bleed.
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but veterinarians have very specific
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and very effective ways of treating and even preventing self injury
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in their self injuring animals
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shouldn't this veterinary knowledge be
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put into the hands of psychotherapists
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and parents and patients
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struggling with self injury
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post pardem depression and post pardem psychosis
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sometimes,
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soon after giving birth, some women
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become depressed and sometimes
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they become seriously depressed and sometimes
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psychotic
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they may neglect ehri newborn
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and in some extreme cases,
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even harm the child
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Equine veteranarians also
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know that a mare, soon
after giving birth
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will neglect the foul
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refusing to nurture it
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and in some instances
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kick the foul even to death.
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But veterinarians have divised
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an intervention to deal with
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this foul rejection syndrom
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that involves increasing oxytocin in the mare
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oxytocin is the bonding hormone
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and this leads to renewed interest
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on the part of the mare in her foul
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shouldn't this information
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be put into the hands of OBGYNs
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and family doctors and patients
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who are struggling with post pardem depression
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and psychosis?
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well despite all of this promise
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unfortunately, the gulf between our fields
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remains large
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to explain it, I'm afraid
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I'm going to have to air
some dirty laundry
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some physicians can be
real snobs
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about doctors who are not MDs
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I'm talking about dentists
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and optomitrists and psychologists
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but maybe especially, animal doctors
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of course, most physicians
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don't realize that it's harder
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to get into vet school these days
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than medical school
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and that when we go to medical school,
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we learn everything there is to konw
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about one species, homo sapiens
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but veterinarians need to learn
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about health and disease
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in mammals, amphibians,
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reptiles, fish and birds
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so, i don't blame the vets
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for feeling annoyed by
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my profession's condescension
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and ignorance
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but here's one from the vets
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what do you call a veteranarian
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who can only take care of one species?
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a physician.
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closing the gap has become a passions for me
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and I'm doing this through programs
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like darwin on rounds at UCLA
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where we're bringing animal experts and
evolutionary biologists
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and embedding them on our medical teams
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with our interns and our residents
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and through zoobiquity conferences
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where we bring medical schools together
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with veterinary schools
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for collabortive discussions
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of the shared diseases and disorders
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of animal and human patients
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at zoobiquity conferences,
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participants learn how treating
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breast cancer in a tiger can
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help us better treat breast cancer in a kindergarten teacher
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how understanding polycistic overies in a hole steen cow
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can help us better take care
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of a dance instructor with painful periods
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and how better understanding the
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treatment of separation anxiety
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in a high strung shelty
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can help a high strung child on his first days of school
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in the united states and now internationally
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at zoobiquity conferences
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physicians and veteranarians check
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their attitudes and their preconceptions at the door
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and come together as colleagues
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as peers,
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as doctors
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after all, we humans
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are animals, too
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and it's time for us physicians to embrace
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our patients and our own animal natures
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and join veterinarians
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in a species-spannign approach to health
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because it turns out
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some of the best and most humanistic medicine
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is being practiced by doctors whose
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patients aren't human
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and one of the best ways we can take care
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of the human patient is by paying close
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attention to how the other patients on the planet
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live, grow, get sick and heal
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Thank you.
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(Applause).
Csaba Lóki
There migh be a typo in the English original at 12:57
"overies" -> "ovaries"