CEU Veterinary, pioneer in Europe for incorporating the subject “One Health” to the syllabus.

From next year Veterinary students of Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, UCH may choose an elective subject that with the title “One Health: connecting humans, animals and environment” will help them understand the concept One Health, its inter-sectorial perspectives and its importance in the present days. “Turning our Faculty into the first in Europe to incorporate this subject to the syllabus” has highlighted the Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary, Joaquín Sopena,

“From this Faculty of Veterinary of Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera we are committed to comprehensive education, actual, integrated and multidisciplinary for our students. Consequence of this philosophy we support One Health education of future veterinaries not only with words but also with actions that reach students directly”. This way, the dean has announced the incorporation to the degree syllabus a subject totally focused on One Health.

This decision responds also to assessment criteria established by the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE) in its Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to certify European Veterinary Faculties.

“In the future we hope that this subject appearing today as elective will be mandatory and transversal for the rest of our university degrees” has declared the dean. An experience that has already been tested by some Medicine and Veterinary Universities in the US where in preclinical subjects, future doctors and veterinaries receive together, in the same classes, the subjects of their relevant careers, which helps them meet and assimilate from these first years the importance of One Health and its management in an interdisciplinary and integrated manner.

“In a global world as todays, former diseases still exist and new diseases spread quicker than ever thanks to interconnected eco-systems and close links between humans and animals. Emphasizing on this interrelation, One Health demands closer collaboration between human and animal health”, has explained the PhD in Animal Health of CEU UCH Santiago Vega.

In this sense, he has pointed out that the One Health approach seeks the improvement of health and wellbeing of human beings, animals and environmental through an innovative, intersectorial and systematic development.