Combined Veterinary–Human Medical Education: A Complete One Health Degree?

Virchow’s concept, which has become known as One Health, currently depicts collaboration among multiple institutions, professions, and disciplines—working locally, nationally, and globally—to protect the health of people, animals, plants, and the environment.1 Comprehensive integration of health education, research, and public service seems inevitable. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)’s One Health Initiative1 has already inspired several important actions.2–4 The first recorded DVM-MD dual degree was created by William Osler, McGill University physician, and Duncan McEachran, Montreal Veterinary College dean, in the 1880s.5 Veterinary graduates could qualify as physicians simply by completing the final year of the McGill medical school curriculum. Unfortunately, this extraordinary collaboration ended following Osler’s move to the University of Pennsylvania.5 Presently, a few veterinary graduates also hold human medical degrees, although each diploma was earned independently. Dual DVMa-PhD, and dual DVMa-Master’s degrees are widely available; however, as far as can be ascertained, there are no integrated veterinary–human medical degree programs. Yet, combining veterinary and human medical education is intuitively simple: a veterinary graduatea would become a physician by completing the final two years of medical school.b Or a medical graduateb would qualify as a veterinarian after completing the third and fourth years of veterinary college.a Such arrangements would demand great flexibility and cooperation to ensure reciprocity between veterinary and human preclinical science curricula, which are similar but not identical. Supplementary coursework might be needed in disciplines such as comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathobiology, which could be given during pre-clinical summer terms at no cost to students. Student selection and enrollment would be straightforward. Upon admission to a participating veterinary college or medical school, students would be informed of available veterinary–human medical dual degree programs, and their interest sought. Also, potential applicants could be recruited during the pre-clinical years. An admissions committee representing both veterinary and human medicine would pick candidates with genuine commitment to inter-professional human–animal–environmental health and interest in research and investigative medicine. To achieve these same goals in the curriculum, the dual syllabus would incorporate specially designed series (tracks) of vertically integrated One Health electives—particularly ecology, environmental biology, and public health—and require the completion of a One Health research project of publishable quality. Tuition should be proportionally the same as charged for the separate degrees. However, for inducement, students could receive privately funded tuition reimbursements and scholarships to finance the additional two years of clinical education. Collaborating colleges need not be located at the same university campus. The One Health model offers valuable opportunities to veterinary and human medicine, although success will require new ways of thinking and behaving. Dual veterinary–human medical graduates would be influential thought leaders for unifying the two health professions for the benefit of society.

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