"The practicing physician plays an enormous role in delivering
clinical research to patients," said CC Director Dr. John Gallin,
one of several presenters at a symposium held during the National Medical
Association (NMA) Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly early last
month in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The Edward C. Mazique Symposium, titled "Science, Service and Business
of Practice-Based Research: A Mecca for African-American Physicians and
Patients?" also included presentations by NIH's Dr. Vivian Pinn, director
of the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH), and Dr. John Ruffin,
associate director of the Office of Research on Minority Health (ORMH).
Additional panel members were Rep. Dr. Donna Christian-Green (D-Virgin
Islands), and Dr. Robert Harrison III, professor of medicine at the University
of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Dr. David Satcher, U.S.
Surgeon General, delivered opening remarks.
Dr. Gallin told an audience of NMA-member physicians that clinical research
has in the past not been an area of formal training in many medical schools,
but as the number of clinical trials increases, practicing physicians are
becoming a critical part of the research process. As a result, training
for all medical staff is important.
"Should clinical research training be included in the medical school
curriculum, either as a mandatory or elective course?" he asked. "My
argument is that it should."
During his presentation, Dr. Gallin also discussed some of the obstacles
to physicians' involvement in clinical research, including medical school
debt, managed care, mistrust by patients, inadequately informed public,
and lack of training for health professionals.
According to Dr. Gallin, the Clinical Center and NIH are currently working
to find solutions for some of those barriers, including providing medical
school graduates pursuing a career in clinical research with $20,000 per
year, tax free, through a loan repayment program; the use of telemedicine
to link rural clinics to NIH physicians; increased access to health and
protocol information on the internet; and improved safeguards and heightened
awareness of the protocol process. Another area of interest is expanding
the 75 general clinical research centers across the country, which currently
support 8,000 protocols and are coordinated by the NIH. "My dream
is that we link all these centers together and we link anyone anywhere
who wants to do clinical research in the world together to create a virtual
clinical research center," he said.
In a presentation titled, "Why Women and Minorities Should Care
About Biomedical Research," Dr. Pinn discussed some of the disparities
in health among minority populations, and explained why having diverse
groups represented in all aspects of clinical research is important.
"To overcome disparities we need the scientific data from clinical
research to help us effect change in health care and health care policy,"
she said. She further stressed the need for minority involvement in clinical
research, not just as volunteers, but also as investigators and policy
makers. Dr. Pinn said that one way to increase the number of minorities
in clinical trials is to give them more opportunities to participate, and
she emphasized the role of the CC in that endeavor. "We are seeing
a great outreach effort, one that I applaud, of the Clinical Center, to
try to make sure that we have inclusion of minority populations of the
studies that are conducted there."
Dr. John Ruffin discussed the role that the ORMH and the ORWH play in
obtaining information from the public and bringing it back to the NIH.
"Our offices were given a challenge," he said. "We have
to quickly identify what it is that we should be doing that we are not
doing." According to Dr. Ruffin, approximately 60% of the budgets
of these offices comes from recommendations that they receive from the
public. "What we do is take those recommendations to people who make
a difference, to see if they can be converted into good science,"
he said. He further challenged attendees to use NIH as a resource and encouraged
them to make their needs known. "Your recommendations should continue
to come to the NIH, " he said. (by LaTonya Kittles)
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