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Prominent Pennsylvania (USA) Veterinary Medical School Dean Joins One Health Initiative Team’s Honorary Advisory Board   The One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono team is delighted to announce that Dr. Joan C. Hendricks http://www.vet.upenn.edu/people/faculty-clinician-search/JOANHENDRICKS, a veterinarian, has graciously accepted becoming a member of the team’s Honorary Advisory Board http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/advBoard.php on June 23, 2014.  The OHI Honorary Advisory Board was established in 2010 and has 34 distinguished members from within the U.S. and worldwide.  Dr. Hendricks has been The Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (USA) since 2006.  In addition, she is noted for conducting scientific research studying the physiology and anatomy of sleep and collaborating with other researchers at The Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology (CSCN) http://www.med.upenn.edu/sleepctr/ at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. In a recently published interview http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2014-05-08/interviews/qa-joan-hendricks posted on the One Health Initiative website’s NEWS page May 18, 2014, Hendricks was quoted in response to a question  …You talk a lot about the One Health concept. What is that, exactly?:  “The school has always had a sense that our job was to advance knowledge to benefit domestic animals and people together. For a long time, we thought of it as treating diseases, so we talked about one medicine, many species. The One Health concept is a little bit more wholistic and progressive, and says that the health of people and animals are interdependent, and interdependent with the wild environment, as well. Veterinary medicine is the only multispecies medical specialty. All veterinarians have a particular connection with the medical school. … It’s a grounding for everything from doing a good job taking care of the animals to also being able to identify ways that they will be healthier, so it’s genetics, nutrition, or the way they’re taking care of training and how the people connect to them, as well. And if you’re talking about animals that serve people by doing some kind of work like the working dogs, or producing food and fiber, you want the animals really healthy because that’s the best outcome for everybody. A component of One Health is linked to food production. It’s a natural thing for a veterinarian to be linked to animal source food because you want the animals healthy. There’s a mission for veterinarians that is in our oath that we serve human society and animals. … It’s really about resolving, making sure that both sides of the equation do well and solving the problems that come about when the interests are in conflict. Connecting to animals is better for people than not. …”   Dr. Hendricks is a longstanding supporter/advocate on the One Health Initiative Supporter list http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/supporters.php and has worked in collaboration with the One Health Initiative team since 2007.