Hoping for sucess....

[s162216]

Hi,

Today my Ethical Approval Application for my research project is getting examined by the Nottingham Trent University (NTU) ethical committee as to whether it is ethically alright and if so give me permission to go ahead with the project as planned. This is for my final year research project and because I am an using human volunteer subjects I have to get the whole thing approved before any testing can happen (= a big long document that I had to fill out all by myself as my 'partner' who was supposed to jointly write it with me did absolutely nothing over the course of 3 weeks).

I am doing a project about the diving reflex which is a survival mechanism upon immersion in cold water and optimises respiration so that the brain receives oxygen as a priority over other tissues. All that my subjects have to do is immerse their face in water of 5, 20 and 35 degrees centigrade whilst breath holding and have their heart rate and blood pressure measured periodically to see the effect of the water temperature on their cardiovascular parameters. I've had to make it very plain in my application that everything is voluntary (i.e we're not going to hold their head under or something like that!) although in an ideal world I would have every subject fitted with an intra-arterial line to get accurate real time BP monitoring, but a) I can't do that myself and b) we would never get approval for something like that!

I'm just hoping that they approve the project and don't ask for any changes etc as I spent a lot of time planning the methodology and writing the application.

Sam

[bamber]

God luck with it!

[s162216]

Thanks, well incidentally if there are any people in Nottingham who are aged 18 - 28, have no respiratory/cardiac problems and want food and possibly restaurant vouchers for 1/2 an hour of their time then roll up and dunk you head! (For the purposes of the rules I am joking and not actually soliciting volunteers from here!)

Sam

[john]

Hi Sam,
Best of British with your application!!
As someone who used to work in medical research i know that all projects have a tough time to get started, well, all good projects anyway!
Let us know as soon as you know yourself how you got on
Fingers crossed for you.....

[glowing]

Wishing you every success. I hope it all goes well for you Sam.

[liz2mac]

Hi Sam,
What an interesting piece of research, I hope you get your approval. Its interesting for us to see the ethics committee from the other side to which we as patients usually see it! Would your research have any impact on the fascinating topic of people who are cooled right down being able to survive with less than normal levels of oxygen?
Liz

[s162216]

Hi Liz,

Unfortunately the reflex is only activated upon the 5th cranial nerve in the face being exposed to cold water so on land its not too useful unless you have a wet flannel put on your face or have your head immersed (it can be used to reduce tachycardia as one key part of the diving reflex is the slowing of heart rate and an increase in peripheral blood pressure), it is the diving reflex that allows people immersed in water to stay underwater for prolonged periods of time or be revived a significant length of time after 'drowning'. Interestingly its also what allows babies to survive in water, but the reflex decreases for unknown reasons as the child grows.

Have not found out if we got approval yet, I'll ask my project supervisor next week.

Sam

[prickles]

Good luck

[s162216]

Found out yesterday that we got approval from the Ethics Committee - that mean we can start getting volunteers through our practical process and collect the relevant data when I go back in January; hopefully we'll be able to find at least 50 people who fit the various medical and personal requirements fairly easily.

Sam

[glowing]

Congratulations Sam!

[john]

Go Sam!!!

[s162216]

Well the project is going well now, we've been testing the subjects for the past week or so and so far done 8 of them with more to come; although we were told we needed 50 subjects, in reality looking at past literature on the subject I think that 30 is more reasonable. It doesn't really help that my 'partner' who was supposed to be working with me has now split from me and is doing her part about the Valsalva manoeuvre separately as she complained that I was holding her back as I 'took too long' with my part compared to hers. Its no big loss really as she was decidedly unhelpful and downright annoying/b**chy anyway with her not doing any work to help set up or tidy up anytime or do anything to help me despite me having to constantly help her but it does mean now that I have to find a load of people to do it on my own as her 'clique' of friends who she was getting to do it won't now because I am no longer working with her.

The results that I have gotten so far are good though and are looking to go the way that I hoped.

Sam