Zoobiquity and "One Medicine"

Session Date: 
Oct 14, 2016

Getting a bad diagnosis is about more than just having a disease. Merely hearing words like breast cancer, melanoma, stroke, septic shock, depression, and eating disorders activates high anxiety triggering an often painful and unsatisfactory search for an explanation. Self-recriminations, finger pointing, blame and shame contribute to patient suffering. Moreover, our culture's preoccupation with disease prevention has led to a widespread and dangerous fallacy: that "good" behavior in the form of eating and other health habits can prevent diseases. The implication is clear: getting sick points to "bad" choices. Increasing awareness of the occurrence of all of these "diseases of civilization" and more in wild animal species offers a path towards a more empathic and more accurate understanding of the nature of health and disease.