NEOGEN Canine DNA Testing

NEOGEN Genomics, the world's largest animal genotyping laboratory, is now offering a Canine DNA Health Test Kit!  Results of this testing kit can help the veterinarian and client collaborate to devise the best prevention and treatment plans for the patient.  Simply obtain a cheek swab and lab test from the patient, link up the kit to your patient at vet.NEOGEN.com, and send in your sample!  It's that easy!

Thank you to Lauren Thorne, Companion Animal Sales and Education Manager, for sharing with our community!  Want to learn more?  Check out NEOGEN's informative flyer below or visit their website!

Research Survey: Chronic Coughing in Cats

Check out this survey from the University of Saskatchewan's College of Veterinary Medicine concerning Chronic Coughing in Cats. This research study is being conducted by Dr. Mathieu Paulin, CVM, IPSAV, Dr. Kevin Cosford (VMC) and Dr. Sarah Caney (Edinburgh).  Thank you to Dr. Paulin for sharing his study with us!

'We want to understand owner’s experience living with a cat with a chronic cough, with past and current treatment regimes. We have created an online questionnaire. The survey takes 10-15 minutes to complete. The survey is open to any cat owner over the age of 18 years living with a cat diagnosed with a coughing condition lasting or requiring treatment for more than 2 months. Participants are able to withdraw from the questionnaire at any time up until pressing submit at the end (withdrawing is anonymous). All data will be anonymous. The data collected will be used exclusively by the research group at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

This survey has been approved by the University of Saskatchewan Behavioural Research Ethics Board (Beh-REB #2140).'

Vet Candy Highlights 'Mindful Hypnotherapy' as a Means to Relieve Stress in Recent Baylor University Study

Mindfulness combined with hypnotherapy aids highly stressed people, study finds.

A new treatment for stress which combines mindfulness with hypnotherapy has shown positive results in a Baylor University pilot study.

The intervention is called "mindful hypnotherapy."

"Mindfulness is a type of meditation that involves focusing attention on present moment awareness. It can help people cope with stress, but can require months of practice and training," said researcher Gary Elkins, Ph.D., director of the Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory at Baylor University. "Hypnosis also involves focusing attention, but it includes mental imagery, relaxation and suggestions for symptom reduction." 

Click to read more ...

Help fill out this survey - Research on Environmental Sustainability

Hi everyone! My name is Stephanie Schiavone, and I am a 2nd year DVM student at Colorado State University. Last semester I joined a class that actually turned out to be an amazing way for myself and several other students to get our feet in the door with research. Our class mentor, Dr. Colleen Duncan, told us we should seek out a sustainability project we are passionate about. All of us decided on sending out a survey to every AVMA accredited veterinary school with an associated teaching hospital on environmental sustainability in the workplace. The survey is designed to target all employees and students who are undergoing clinical rotations. Our goals for this project are to discover where within the hospital there was a lot of non-sustainable waste being produced and how to better address it to see where changes can be made. Our hope with this study is to publish it to JVME so that we can start to make more sustainable changes in our hospitals and design a better future for ourselves, our furry companions, and our non-furry companions. I hope you can help me by taking 10 minutes out of your day to take this survey. Thank you all so much! 

https://tinyurl.com/VTHSustainability 

sschiavo@colostate.edu

Veterinary Experiences Affecting Environmental Health

As a new intiative by SAVMA's Global and Public Health Outreach Officer, The Vet Gazette will be highlighting student research projects that involve the third, often forgotten arm of the One Health triad -- the environment!

The first to be featured is Bonni Beaupied from Colorado State University!

"This summer, with the support of CSU's Veterinary Summer Scholars Program, I worked with our Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences on a budding One Health research project. The broad goal of this project is to evaluate the impact of air pollution on dairy cow health and to use that information to better understand the impact on human health in understudied populations. Exposure to air pollution, including criteria pollutants such as ozone (O3) and aerosolized fine particulate matter (PM2.5), has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality in mammals. These effects have primarily been studied in the laboratory or in humans living in urban settings. Situated in a controlled environment that facilitates data collection, dairy cattle present a unique, yet unexplored, opportunity to assess the correlation between subtle shifts in air pollution and mammalian health. Furthermore, ground-level O3 peaks during the hot summer months, when dairy production is lowest, and may therefore be an unexplored factor in reduced milk production. My research aimed to assess the effects of air pollutants on dairy cow health by comparing O3 and PM2.5 levels recorded by local US EPA air quality monitors to daily production data and bulk tank somatic cell counts. Initial results have supported the hypothesis that O3 exposure is associated with reduced dairy yield. The results of this study may uncover areas for intervention to improve these impacts at the dairy level. These data will also contribute to a translational model for using cattle health as a proxy for human health, particularly in rural settings or other regions with limited air quality data."

Congratulations, Bonnie!