I know it has been a long time since I blogged about this project, but I can guarantee it’s not because there’s been a shortage of work… Since last blogging, I’ve accomplished the following:
- Signed up with Survey Monkey©. I created my surveys for both physicians and veterinarians.
- The consent forms have been completed (needing minor tweaking).
- The proposal was completed, however is in the process of complete renovation.
- I’ve narrowed down my sampling. The technique I was previously using has changed (I’ll explain more in a minute).
- I made a description of how I will be analyzing my data.
- I’ve purchased, and have been reading, a few books I think will give me additional information on zoonotic disease, communication between professionals, and communication between health professional and patient.
I have to admit, I cant recall ever working on a project this hard; not that I have never worked hard on a project, I have done data digging and informally researched projects on my own accord to simply discover more information on a particular subject matter. This has been a little intimidating at times.
Originally I was going to seek my sample from four states (Florida, Texas, California, and New York) and three population density locations (rural, suburb, and city) within each of those locations. I was attempting to get information from small animal veterinarians and family physicians that have the same clients (veterinarian)/patient (physician)…essentially looking for an ordered pair. How I was going to achieve this (in my mind anyway) was picking a location on the map as the epicenter for each of those three locations, use a compass measured out (according to the atlas’ key) 60 miles, figuring the average person would drive no greater than 60 miles on average to a physician or veterinarian. However, what I failed to think of was what the average person would drive if they live in a city or suburb, compared to what the average person would drive in a rural location. I live in a rural area in Michigan currently, however I previously lived in a suburb of Detroit (Waterford). Its nothing for someone to drive greater than 40 miles to a physician from the area I live now, however in Waterford the average person lived less than 20 minutes from their physician or veterinarian…this put holes through sampling techniques. Therefore, I’ve revised it to the following…
I still feel it necessary to choose Florida, California, Texas, and New York as my sample states (these states best represent the continental United States and the zoonotic diseases they may encounter), however instead of choosing three population densities, I’m looking at sending requests to 150 potential recipients (300 total, 150 for each health profession). I’m accounting for the population densities by asking each participant to provide the population size at the location of their facility; when I gave it greater thought, if I was to choose my location by population density I am making that a focus or variable of my study, and that is not my intent. However, I do believe it’s necessary to notes differences according to population.
To gather my sample, I looked up the state websites for each of the veterinary licensing boards and physician licensing boards. My plan is to create a database of email addresses for 1200 professionals (150 for each professional, 300 for each state); each name will be chosen at random, choosing every fifth or tenth name on the list of alphabetical professionals. I have run into a problem that will cost me more work with some states…some do not differentiate on their list of the specialty the veterinarian practices (such as small animal). This past week I called the licensing board for each profession at each state. In addition to finding out which professionals are small animal veterinarians, I also was double checking the accuracy of the information provided on their websites (I.e. how current); the endeavor consisted of two days of calling and also faxing the veterinary licensing board in California (so they could verify my intentions and find out through their licensing board and determine if their legal department would allow me to gain additional information from them). Granted the resubmission of my proposal is accepted, I’ll started data collecting on Monday, March 1st.
The survey portion of data collecting will run from March 1st until March 14th. The week of March 15th, I’ll be conducting phone interviews based on the information I collected from the surveys. In addition, a focus group (what I previously referred to as a web conference) will commence during the week of March 22nd. I look forward to getting through the data collection step and begin analyzing the data.
I purchased a few books, as I mentioned above, that I believe will provide additional information and support for my research. The books I purchased include:
- Impact of Emerging Zoonotic Diseases on Animal Health, 8th Biennial Conference of the Society for tropical veterinary medicine (2006). Although you may be reading this and thinking “doesn’t that say for tropical veterinary medicine,” trust me, there is very relevant information in this book; an example include “Linking Human and Animal Health Surveillance for Emerging Diseases in the United States (Lynn, Marano, Treadwell, Bokma, 2006).”
- Human-Animal Medicine Clinical Approaches to Zoonoses, Toxicants and Other Shared Health Risks (Rabinowitz, Conti, 2010). This is a wonderful book I would recommend to any veterinary or health professional that comes into contact with any kind of zoonotic diseases either through patients/clients or themselves. The information covered in this text is proving to be invaluable to my research project, but it also is going to be invaluable as a Licensed Veterinary Technician.
- Health Professional and Patient Interaction (Purtilo, Haddad, 1996). The purchase of this book was to gain a better understanding of patient and human health professional relationship.
Amidst the reading, researching, and revising I’ve been quite busy (sleep has been a little deprived at times), no complaints here however. This has been a wonderful experience and I know its going to affect (positively) my career choices. In addition to the hope that I will be able to publish this study when it’s complete, I’ll know the process for future opportunities.
