Heart of Man’s Best Friend:introduction
Joseph g -
Hi everyone! My name is Joseph G, and I’m a senior at BASIS Flagstaff. My project will examine how elevation affects common cardiomyopathy in Boxers and Great Danes. I chose this project because I’ve always loved animals, having grown up with dogs, cats, horses, goats, and even geese for a bit. My childhood with animals has inspired me to want to be a veterinarian. Therefore, I have chosen to do my senior project on this subject and an internship with a veterinarian in Flagstaff.
The internship: I will intern at Aspen Veterinary Clinic for ten hours a week. I don’t know precisely what I will be doing during my time there, but I will probably spend most of my time shadowing one of the doctors, Dr. Gabelt. I chose this place for my internship because I wanted to get practical field experience before committing to veterinary medicine in college. Shadowing one of the doctors at this clinic will help with my paper and research for my project and will also give me the practical experience I need.
Project: I am looking into how elevation affects how often cardiomyopathy appears in Boxers and Great Danes. I will use a survey to collect information from owners and clinics to obtain enough data to analyze and find a possible statistical difference between elevations. I may not be able to get much information from clinics since there are HIPAA laws for dogs as well (who knew?). Because of the HIPAA laws, all information I get will have to be de-identified, so whether I can get any information depends on the clinic.
In the case that I cannot get any data from the clinic, I will be posting flyers containing a QR-code that links to a survey so that I can question owners directly. The survey contains questions about the dog including medical history, age, and exercise level, but will have no identifiable information about the owners in order to prevent any issues surrounding data collection.
Here is the flyer I will be using (this one links to the flagstaff survey if anyone wants to distribute it):
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