The prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all animals, whether the issue is disease, condition or injury, defines the practice of the veterinarian. The actual range of this field of medicine covers all animal species and the extensive range of conditions which affect these animal species. Animal care is practiced both professionally and by pet and animal owners and even wilderness enthusiasts, hunters and those who dwell in the wild. Professional care is led by a veterinarian or by technicians and nurses with education as veterinary technicians.
Veterinarians undergo extensive academic preparation, while veterinary technicians hold expertise certificates from institutions with animal science programs. Once examined, veterinary physicians with specific specialties may be called in to examine the patient, test results and set the course of treatment. These could include veterinary dentists, physiotherapists, or like Dr. Philip Treuil, radiation oncologists.
Human health, its conditions, diagnoses and treatment, is intricately intertwined with veterinary science, including the prevention of transmission of infectious disease from animals to humans (zoonotic disease), assuring the safety of food products which originate from animal sources, and the invaluable assistance rendered to medical research through experience with animal conditions requiring diagnosis and care.
Veterinary physicians and researchers play a large role in assuring a healthy human food supply by monitoring livestock for healthy conditions and treatments. Veterinarians and veterinarian technicians also play a large role in human mental health conditions, through their work to keep much-loved pets, vital members of human families, healthy and long-lived, one of the vital purposes of the radiation oncology veterinary work of Dr. Philip Treuil.