With a demanding number of 2015 AWARE for All and Medical Hero Appreciation events behind us, we are gearing up for an even busier fall schedule! This summer, we are preparing to bring our AWARE events to three major cities: St. John’s University in New York City, Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, IL and the William and Ida Friday Center in the Triangle, NC. Please let us know if you’d like to attend and to volunteer time to help us with these programs.
I’m pleased to note that our Communicating Trial Results program continues to expand rapidly among sponsor companies, and our Medical Hero Appreciation events are garnering record numbers of supporters.
This summer we’ve added to our Boston office staff. We welcome three new CISCRP team members. Colin Burnett, Tufts University, and Jonah Frielich, UMASS Amherst, joined as summer interns contributing to the Search Clinical Trials service and Communicating Trial Results program. We are excited to welcome Danielle Lavieri as the Assistant Marketing, Communications, and Public Relations Coordinator.
This quarter also brought new additions and updates to our library of educational resources including a new “Debunking Common Myths About Clinical Trials” brochure, as well as a beautifully updated version of our “Education Before Participation” brochure, now titled “Should I Participate?” Both are now available to order from our online store!
Our team has also been working on important transparency initiatives, sending a petition to the FDA Commissioner pushing for regulations around providing lay language trial results summaries to participants and publishing a response letter in the New England Journal of Medicine. In addition, CISCRP staff members have traveled around the U.S. leading discussions with industry professionals about transparency and other major CISCRP initiatives.
Finally, I’d like to extend a warm thanks to all of our supporters; our many programs and events would not be possible without your support, enthusiasm and dedication to our mission! As always, we welcome your feedback as we continue to improve our newsletter.
Warmly,
Maya Wise