Evidence Based Practice for Animal Professionals Part 1

Original Air Date: 8th February 2022 1.5 hrs

FREE FOR APBC MEMBERS- PLEASE USE THE 100% DISCOUNT CODE THAT YOU WILL FIND UNDER WEBINAR CODES IN THE MEMBERS AREA.

ABTC £25

PUBLIC- £35

Presenter Bio:

Dr Morag K Heirs, PhD, MSc, MA(hons)(SocSci), PGCAP, ABTC-CAB, ABTC-ATI

Morag is a practicing Clinical Animal Behaviourist, proud member of the APBC and an enthusiastic academic with particular interests in research, evidence based practice, scentwork and deaf/blind dogs. Morag divides her time between academic study and clinical practice. 

Academic activities: Morag is currently a lecturer in Psychology (Open University), Human Factors in Behaviour Counselling & Advanced Dog Training (Bishop Burton) and a visiting lecturer for the University of Edinburgh (MSc in Clinical Animal Behaviour). She supervises a range of MSc research students from Clinical Animal Behaviour to Acupuncture and Advanced Oriental Medicine.

Clinical activities: Morag is a Director of Well Connected Canine Ltd, based in York (UK) and manages a small team providing canine behaviour services to private clients, local government organisations, and national animal rescue organisations. She specialises in risk assessment, treating phobias and working with deaf and/or blind dogs. Morag also includes skills from her previous career as a myofascial release and remedial massage therapist in many consultations.

When not attempting to convince practitioners that a scientific journal club really is the most exciting way to spend a Saturday morning, Morag enjoys canicross ultra running with her two collies and a large German Wire-Haired Pointer.

Presentation Detail:

Evidence-based practice is a relatively new buzz word for the animal behaviour and training world, but it’s been around a long time in human health care and research. When we’re trying to decide what strategy to take for a specific client, or justify a decision to the animal shelter, wouldn’t it be great to have some solid scientific back up?  Even if it turns out that there’s not much evidence, that can help inform our decisions too. 

We’re going to start by assuming you have some primary research papers saved on your computer or printed out on your desk. Journal articles can look intimidating, and very few make good bedtime reading material. Understanding the scientific form and language is a skill in its own right, and improves with practice.  Rather than skimming the abstract, or just reading a summary of the paper on a blog, this session is all about digging into the juicy innards of research articles. 

Critical appraisal really means working out how much we can trust the results of a study. Did the researchers use the most suitable methods to answer their question? How reliable will those answers be? How useful are the findings in relation to your practice and experiences?

Core Learning Outcomes

1. Learn the key words and essential sections to look for in an article
2. Create an outline of the paper using PICOS (using a real life example paper)
3. Critically read the findings AND decide if it’s worth changing your practice

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