One Health Day, 3rd of Nov 2016

The inaugural International One Health Day will be on the 3rd of November. Pop over to the One Health Commission’s website to see what One Health events will be held in your geographical region.

For those not in the know, One Health is a multi-disciplinary collaborative movement between practitioners and scientists of human, animal and environmental health. Classic examples often include zoonotic diseases such as Zika virus, Ebola and rabies. Yet the One Health also includes areas such as agricultural production, disease surveillance, translational medicine and plenty more. I will gladly say that the issue of Anthropogenic Climate Change is a One Health issue.

The concept of One Health gets a lot of traction and attention on an international and national level, providing opportunities to break down silos between different government departments to tackle shared issues. Yet I have found discussions of One Health at a grassroots level a little harder to reach for. As someone who is a clinical practitioner these days, I am appreciating that the biggest hurdle is time – balancing the mix of consultations, management of hospital and outpatient cases, I personally have found it hard to step next door to the medical centre to have a chat.

Beyond the time hurdle, there is also the perceived power-differential that may exist between practitioners and scientists – something ingrained into us from day 1 of university-training. Thankfully some universities are seeking to address this by designing undergraduate One Health courses and sharing faculties. Yet, we (as veterinary practitioners) can’t operate with the excuse of lacking collaborative opportunities.

For example, in one of his last talks, the late Prof Rick Speare (James Cook University) made the case of creating collaboration between veterinary and medical practitioners when dealing with ringworm outbreaks within a household – whilst the medical practitioner may provide advice on treating human ringworm cases, they will often recommend the household pets be tested for ringworm – we will work the case up, potentially identify the fungus on an offending cat and inform the clients. Yet there is a missed opportunity to communicate with the client’s medical practitioner to update them of the finding and share the advice provided to the clients on how to address the environmental contamination.

Other areas for medical-veterinary collaboration may include dog bites/attacks, toxoplasmosis education or even the zoonotic potential of antimicrobial resistant bacteria.

Obviously this approach should also be encouraged with the environmental sector and one day I will write a blog about the opportunities there.

Anyway, this is my longwinded way of saying – get out to one of the One Health events in your area tomorrow, make friends with a professional/practitioner/scientist from another field and make sweet, sweet science…

Source: Events Listing 2016 – One Health Commission

Everyone needs this bloke on their character reference list #humour #vetjobs

Yes, I’ve been slack with juggling the blogs and hunting jobs for you all. Hopefully that will soon change with some time adjustments behind the scenes.

In the meantime, to ease me into the land of blogging again, I thought it would be good to bring up the subject of references.

  • Choose your references wisely.
  • Give your references a heads up before you apply for a job.
  • Tell your reference what job you are applying for so they can semi-prepare for the angle of questioning.
  • Make sure your references will be clear and articulate and not overdo it – I have a friend who was notorious for lathering the praise that you’d think he’d name his first born after the intended candidate [he didn’t].

For anyone transitioning out of clinical veterinary practice to something more “veterinarycareers.com.au”, don’t forget not to burn your bridges at the clinic you leave – often those clinics will be called up for a review. Additionally, given how small a world the veterinary profession is, word of mouth can be a powerful tool to help you get your desired job.

And if all else fails, have a hunt for the bloke below and I’m sure he’ll sing you praises.

https://www.facebook.com/hamishandandy/videos/10153777634841232/

 

Free online course in One Health – University of Basel

An exciting free online course on One Health is currently on offer by the University of Basel. This course starts on the 7th of November and will hopefully serve as a great jumping on point for many practitioners.

One Health is the interface between human, veterinary and environmental health. Examples of where One Health collaborations work well include rabies eradication programs and Ebola virus investigations.

As someone who likes to play in the One Health arena, I have found the hardest part is initiating multi-disciplinary collaboration.

Find a kitten with ringworm? Get in contact with the client’s GP and give them the heads up.

I acknowledge that we are all rather time poor due to the many roles we play, yet there are opportunities in this area to create collaborations at the grassroots level – an area that is sorely in need of development and encouragement for One Health.

So I encourage you all to sign up for this course and help push One Health in whatever role you play as a veterinarian.

 

Source: One Health – University of Basel

GCEID’s pre-congress workshop “A One Health Approach to Infectious Diseases” – Registration now open | GCEID

If anyone is heading to the One Health/EcoHealth Congress later this year in Melbourne, Victoria, this pre-congress workshop looks like it will be quite interesting and worthwhile.

The workshop (Tuesday 29 Nov – Thursday 1 Dec 2016) will be held prior to the “One Health EcoHealth Congress 2016” (www.oheh2016.org) scheduled for 3-7 December 2016. Overview: The interwoven…

Source: GCEID’s pre-congress workshop “A One Health Approach to Infectious Diseases” – Registration now open | GCEID