ONS Connect - December 2008 - (Page 16) YOuTElluS How Has Research in Your Community Benefitted Your Patients and Practice? Mention local Clinical Trials at Community Health fairs y role as a clinical research coordinator in a community hospital setting enhances the experience for patients undergoing protocol treatment for their cancer. Most patients in a small community setting think that research is conducted only at well-known cancer centers where they would need to travel to access. I routinely attend community health fairs to raise awareness about clinical trials right in their backyard. The community has embraced the option of enrolling into clinical trials at the local level. I feel that my role as a patient advocate allows patients to feel safe and at the same time hopeful that the clinical trial treatment will help them and others in the future. M resulted in increased awareness of and renewed interest for nursing research at UCSD. Nursing research at UCSD is still in the development process. We recently established the Nursing Research Council (NRC) as part of our shared governance model of nursing leadership. The goals of the NRC are to develop and maintain policies and standards based on evidence, involve staff nurses in the conduct of research, and develop staff nurses as principal investigators for research projects. Research and evidence-based practice initiatives in our community have led to an introspective evaluation of nursing practice. It may be too early to measure the impact of these initiatives on quality care. Marlon Garzo Saria, MSN, RN, AOCNS® Clinical Nurse Specialist, Oncology/BMT University of California, San Diego, Medical Center La Jolla, CA Mary Lynn Breslin, RN, BSN, OCN® Ocean Medical Center Brick, NJ Community program Renews interest in Nursing Research he University of California, San Diego (UCSD), is an active participant in the San Diego Evidence-Based Practice Consortium, a communitybased program that is in its second year of implementation. This participation T Network Brings Clinical Trials to local Communities he Cancer Institute of New Jersey Oncology Group (CINJOG) was developed as a network of hospitals and community oncology practices that participate in investigator-initiated and cooperative group studies to help bring T clinical trials to communities throughout the state of New Jersey. CINJOG gives patients the opportunity to receive promising new treatments closer to home without the burden of travel. As new clinical trials are opened at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick, every effort is made to make sure the trials are available to physicians in other CINJOG practices so that patients have access to study treatments in their local offices, closer to home, from a physician and healthcare team they already know. Study data from the patients’ care is then entered into a research database in the physician’s office and can be reviewed by principal investigators and research staff in New Brunswick. The CINJOG network of physicians and nurses is a major force in cancer research and is committed to research that will help our patients and have an effect on how care is delivered in the future. I sincerely believe that the collaborations of these dedicated professionals are leading to innovative studies and emerging new treatments that will ultimately help us achieve our goal of eliminating this deadly disease. Marianne Balay, MS, RN Associate Director The Cancer Institute of New Jersey Oncology Group New Brunswick, NJ More You Tell Us responses are available online at www.ONSConnect.org. 16 ONS CONNECT December 2008 http://www.ONSConnect.org
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.