could someone explain Clinical Research

[littlehooves]

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(aretoo I know you're going to be ON this one! 😀 )

I guess it depends on the university, but in terms of clinical research, what are the types of things you could do for an undergrad thesis and/or an MSc? I know it really depends what the profs/Dr.s at the schools are doing... but I was just wondering if anyone could throw out some things about what clin research involves...and the type of stuff you could study while you're NOT a DVM (yet)? Could this be stuff like "Effectiveness of toothbrushing in cats",
"correlation between chewing level and kong availability in canine toy breeds", "efficacy of popsicle stick splints on pigeons with broken legs" 🙂 .... things to that effect 😉

I've searched around on their website, but they don't reveal to much detailed info about the projects that are going on.

 

[Bill59]

Clinical research is simply research in the clinical setting. It's research involving patients, evaluating the cause, prevention, diagnosis or treatment of naturally occurring disease. Examples would be:

-epidemiological studies
-testing a new diagnostic technique
-evaluating the safety and efficacy of a new treatment

of the examples you suggested.

You best bet is to get with a professor doing clinical research and see if they need any help. They often hire students over the summer to assist with research.

 

[aretoo]

So i just wrote you an awesome answer then lost it lol. Here is what I can remember of it.

I assume by 'their website' you mean U of G. Check out these websites for an idea of some of the research going on (click on the faculty's name): http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/clin/faculty/
http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/biom/faculty/
http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/cfmx/popm/faculty/
http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/path/faculty/

And for OAC Department of Animal and Poultry Science: http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/

As far as doing a 4th year undergrad thesis I talked to my program counselor and he said I could pretty much do anything with anyone as long as I could convince someone to be my advisor 🙂 So pretty open ended.

Some 4th year projects I remember hearing about:
-feeding Mg to pigs and seeing how it affected meat quality
-using fans to cool horses while treadmilling (not sure what they were trying to do lol but anyway)
-(long time ago) trying to freeze horse embryos and get foals from them
-Collecting blood and feed samples from horses to determine prevalence of mycotoxins in SW Ontario
That's all I can think of right now. I haven't heard of much in small animals for 4th year work, mostly food animals, but it's still cool.

At U of G you can do a MSc by coursework or by doing a thesis. Either way you have to do a project, the thesis one is just bigger and more effort but you don't have to do as many classes. I don't really know too much about them (not really interested in doing a MSc personally) but there's lots of options and I've heard of some really cool projects.

 

[aretoo]

Oh and the way the 4th year projects work, the project counts as one course (0.5 credits) per semester, and you generally do it in the fall and the winter of your 4th year. You'll take 4 other courses to have a full load. In the fall you do lots of reading and do a lit review. And maybe work on the design of your project I guess? Then in the winter you conduct your experiment and write a mini paper about it.

 

[WildZooVet]

Do something about the corelation between obesiety and other health problems (diabetes, rheumatic disease, heart disease ect.) in dogs. It's amazing how many comorbid diseases are eliminated just by weight loss.

Just an idea..

 

[littlehooves]

Yeah cool thats definatly a good idea.

But I just want to make sure that these are actually types of things I could study... for an undergrad thesis. Most of my friends are in Bio, and so are thrilled to be doing ecology/conservation stuff. Although I think its cool, my interests are more medically related. So I have no one to turn to and ask what their experiences are 😛