This project began in January 2013 in a class of ten students that met Friday afternoons on the third floor of Gaige Hall on an all but deserted RIC campus.
On the last day of class for the semester, our professor asked us why we had chosen to conduct our own projects and what we hoped to gain from them. My answer seemed simple: DVT/PE is the leading cause of preventable death in hospitals. To most people this is shocking. To me, as a nursing student and someone who has had personal experience with DVT/PE, it’s more than shocking. Rather than take this information and just accept it, I realized that as an honors student I have the ability to do something more with it. The goal of this project is to increase public knowledge and promote understanding of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.
The first part of this project involves conducting a survey of the general public to quantify exactly how big the knowledge deficit related to DVT/PE is. It will also assess how people prefer to access health information. This survey will go live in October and be available from this website, in addition to our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Based on the data gathered, a public education campaign will be launched to increase public awareness of DVT/PE.