Name: 【TED】Barbara Natterson-Horowitz: What veterinarians know that doctors don't
Uploaded: 2015-06-03T05:20:34.000Z
Duration: 15 min 2 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Relative clauses (Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive)

At the time, I was  cardiologist at UCLA,

specializing in cardiac  imaging techniques.

The call came from a veterinarian at the Los Angeles Zoo.

and the veterinarians were worried that she'd had a stroke.

Now, to be clear, North American zoos are staffed

by highly qualified,  board-certified veterinarians

who take outstanding  care of their animal patients.

But occasionally, they do reach into  the human medical community,

particularly for some  speciality consultation,

and I was one of the lucky physicians who was invited in to help.

I had a chance to rule out a stroke in this chimpanzee

and make sure that this gorilla  didn't have a torn aorta,

make sure that this California sea lion's pericardium wasn't inflamed,

and in this picture, I'm listening to the heart of a lion

after a lifesaving,  collaborative procedure

where we drained 700 cc's of  fluid from the sac

in which this lion's  heart was contained.

And this procedure, which I have done on many human patients,

was identical, with the exception of that paw and that tail.

Now most of the time, I was working at UCLA Medical Center with physicians,

discussing symptoms and diagnoses and treatments

but some of the time, I was working at the Los Angeles Zoo

with veterinarians, discussing  symptoms and diagnoses and treatments

And here's what started coming into very clear focus for me.

Physicians and veterinarians were essentially taking care

of the same disorders in their  animal and human patients:

leukemia, diabetes,  arthritis, ALS, breast cancer,

even psychiatric syndromes like depression, anxiety,

compulsions, eating disorders and self-injury.

Even though I studied comparative physiology and evolutionary biology

I had even written my senior  thesis on Darwinian theory --

between the disorders of  animals and humans,

it came as a much needed  wake-up call for me.

So I started wondering, with all of these overlaps,

how was it that I had never thought to ask a veterinarian,

for insights into one  of my human patients?

Why had I never, nor had any of my  physician friends and colleagues

whom I asked, ever attended  a veterinary conference?

For that matter, why was  any of this a surprise?

I mean, look, every single physician accepts some biological connection

Every medication that we prescribe or that we've taken ourselves

about giving an animal a  medication or a human disease

and the animal developing  congestive heart failure

or diabetes or breast cancer  on their own.

comes from the increasing separation in our world

increasingly, are turning into these gleaming cathedrals of technology.

And this creates a psychological distance between the human patients

and animal patients who are living in oceans

But I think there's an  even deeper reason.

Physicians and scientists, we accept intellectually that our species,

no more unique or special than any other.

But in our hearts, we don't  completely believe that.

I feel it myself when I'm  listening to Mozart

or looking at pictures of the  Mars Rover on my MacBook.

I feel that tug of  human exceptionalism,

even as I recognize the  scientifically isolating cost

of seeing ourselves as a superior species, apart.

When I see a human patient now, I always ask,

what do the animal doctors know about this problem that I don't know?

And, might I be taking better  care of my human patient

Here are a few examples of the  kind of exciting connections

that this kind of  thinking has led me to.

human cardiologists "discovered" emotionally induced heart failure.

It was described in a gambling father  who had lost his life's savings