Vanessa Ashall
Senior Research Fellow and co-director of SATSU

Profile

Biography

I am an interdisciplinary health researcher and qualified veterinary surgeon. I am interested in the meaning and significance of human-animal relationships in the context of health and medicine. I am a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and a European Specialist in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law. I have 15 years of clinical experience working as a veterinary surgeon in the clinic and in the laboratory. 

My Masters degree in medical ethics and law developed into an interest in the concept of comparative medical ethics and I was awarded a Clinical Fellowship by the Wellcome Trust in 2014 to research the social and ethical implications of using companion animals as living donors of blood and tissue for veterinary use. 

I have published on the ethics and regulation of animal research, veterinary involvement in animal research, informed consent and sociological and ethical aspects of human and animal blood donation. I have influenced policy and practice within the UK and EU through the provision of expert opinion and the development of ethical decision making tools. 

My current project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, uses the sociological concept of interspecies entanglement to explore end of life care from an innovative interspecies and interdisciplinary perspective.

Publications

Full publications list

Ashall V (2022) A Feminist Ethic of Care for the Veterinary Profession. Front. Vet. Sci. 9:795628. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.795628

Jenkins, N., Gorman, R., Douglas, C., Ashall, V., Ritchie, L. and Jack-Waugh, A. (2021). 'Multi-species dementia studies: Contours, contributions and controversies.' Journal of Aging Studies, 59, 100975.

Davies, G., Gorman, R., Greenhough, B., Hobson-West, P., Kirk, R.G., Myelnikov, D., Palmer, A., Roe, E., Ashall, V., Crudgington, B. and McGlacken, R. (2020). Animal research nexus: a new approach to the connections between science, health and animal welfare. Medical humanities, 46(4), pp.499-511.

Ashall, V. (2018). Ethical dilemmas encountered by small andimal veterinarians: challenging the status quo? Veterinary Record.

Ashall, V., Millar, K. and Hobson-West, P. (2018). Informed consent in veterinary medicine: ethical implications for the profession and the animal 'patient'. Food Ethics.

Ashall, V. and Hobson-West, P. (2017). 'Doing good by proxy': human-animal kindship and the 'donation' of canine blood. Sociology of Health and Illness.

Ashall, V. (2014). Engaged with ethics. Veterinary Record.

Ashall, V. and Millar, K. (2014). Endpoint matrix: a conceptual tool to promote consideration of the multiple dimensions of humane endpoints. ATLEX.

Ashall, V. and Millar, K. (2013). An opportunity to refocus on the 'humane' in experimental endpoints: moving beyond Directove 2010/63/EU. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals: ATLA