Connie White, Class of 1997,
and her dog Frazier.
In nearly twenty years of treating sick dogs, cats, and horses, OSU alumna Connie White has identified a need in veterinary medicine: There is very little research providing evidence-based knowledge to primary care veterinarians.
Dr. White’s interest in research was cultivated in the OSU lab of Dr. Carol Rivin where she earned a Ph.D. in Genetics. At the same time, Dr. White was working on her DVM in the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. “The OSU faculty was great — practical and rigorous,” says White. “The caseload was immense so we were well-trained for practice.”
Following graduation, Dr. White worked in a mixed animal practice, and then in emergency medicine for Dove Lewis. In 2004, she moved to her current position at the Fremont Clinic in Portland. “It’s a great group of six doctors,” she says. “We do lots of chronic care management — hyperthyroidism in cats, chronic bladder stones, and kidney disease.” That is an arena where she would especially like to see more evidence-based research. For example, most veterinarians have been using the same prevention plan for bladder stones for thirty years. She has recently been using a pill common in human medicine and thinks it may be helping her patients, but has no empirical evidence to support that. “It is a five cent pill, so no pharm company is not going to sponsor research on it if they can’t make money.”
There are many other human treatments that could possible benefit animals, but no studies have been done. “There are new standards of care in humans and we should be asking if those same standards might help dogs or cats.”
Dr. White would like to see universities do more primary care research, but understands that research funding mostly comes from the federal government for basic science. “Also, university teaching hospital’s don’t see a lot primary care cases,” she says.
Now, Dr. White is in a position to do something about that. She recently inherited ‘a bit of dough’ and is creating an endowment to fund evidence-based research in the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. “I started thinking, ‘What happens to my money when I die?’ she says. “Planned giving allows me to be semi-specific in how it is used. I want it to go to evidence-based research because that is what I am passionate about.”
