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Taking The Mystery Out Of Clinical Trials

About 10 days ago I appeared in Phoenix as a speaker at a regional education seminar put on by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. My topic was sharing my experience as a participant in a clinical trial. I was delighted to do so, as I feel that trial saved my life and restored me to good health.

I am hoping my words encouraged others to consider being in a trial. There are no guarantees of the result, but trials are always worth considering. Unfortunately, few patients do. That may limit their choices and certainly holds back research that could help others. What a shame.

Clinical trials are defined as human subject research. It is through these trials that we determine if new drugs or devices can better serve patients than what is currently available. Clinical trials are available for almost every disease — although finding these trials can be challenging. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*

A Grassroots Leukemia Mission

I am just back from Phoenix where I spent the weekend with people living with CML, chronic myelogenous leukemia. The operative words are “living with” because it wasn’t very long ago when people did not live long with this disease. However, medical science and dedicated researchers like Dr. Brian Druker at OHSU in Portland, Oregon have brought us what first appear to be “miracle” pills (Gleevec, Sprycel, and Tasigna) that can keep patients alive and doing well.

My weekend was spent with several people, all taking one of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor drugs, as they were planning next steps for a new advocacy organization, The National CML Society. The Society is the creation of Greg Stephens of Birmingham, Alabama, a business consultant who lost his mother to CML. Now he has devoted his life to giving voice to patients, researchers, and building a vibrant community.

CML is not common. There are just over 4,000 new cases in the U.S. each year. And, now that there are three powerful and approved medicines, some people feel the disease is “cured” and not in urgent need of public discussion. The patients I met with said this was “baloney” and they were driven to support the new society because they felt the obvious advocacy group, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, was not giving them enough attention nor listening carefully to their stories. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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