The Past, the Present and the Future of Multidisciplinary Collaboration in Veterinary Public Health and Expected Perspectives

The approach to cooperation between physicians and veterinarians and with any other health-related skills shall be addressed to the identification and attainment of the goals that require collaboration meant both as a joint action and a division of responsibility. Collaboration must be achieved both when Medical and Veterinary Services belong to the same Administration and when they belong to different ones. In most countries of the Mediterranean area and in the rest of the world, Veterinary Services depend on the agricultural administration, and this constitutes the most common model. In some other countries Veterinary Services are split and pertain to both agricultural and health administration. In Austria, Italy and few other nations Veterinary Services belong to the health administration. The fields of action of VPH (hence of Veterinary Services) in this model involve all aspects of public veterinary activity including such issues as animal diseases and zoonoses control, food hygiene, animal-linked environmental problems. Accordingly, the sectors and disciplines covered by Veterinary Services will include infectivology, toxicology, food science, environmental and biological pollutants, and others. This model implies per se a high degree of multidisciplinary collaboration and will be prevailingly used in this paper.