Celebrating International Clinical Trials Day. Speak Up!

Celebrating International Clinical Trials Day. Speak Up!

International Clinical Trials Day is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate all the stakeholders that are involved in clinical trials and create awareness of clinical trials in the community.

From those that design the research, to the clinicians, nurses and coordinators running the trials, volunteers that participate, sponsors that fund and monitor, and ethics committees and regulators that maintain a level of oversight and produce a framework for quality clinical trials, there are many that play a role in advancing medical knowledge and keeping participants as safe as possible.

Lilly have produced a great interactive infographic, based on data from the US clinicaltrials.gov that gives a sense of how much clinical trial activity is going on, based on the number of people that are needed to volunteer for clinical trials on that clinical trial registry. When I looked at it this morning, over $57 million volunteers are needed. That’s alot of people. It’s also alot of supporting infrastructure needed to run the trials, both in terms of financial capital, as well as human resources and services.

Celebrate International Clinical Trials Day

So much time and energy is invested in improving healthcare through clinical research. Any yet how much of the public understand how clinical trials work, or why they are done? That’s why days like International Clinical Trials Day are important. It gives each of us that know something about the clinical trials enterprise a great excuse to talk about what we do, why it is important, and to dispel some myths.  Hopefully, it improves awareness and leads a few more people to ask their doctors “Could there be a clinical trial that might be suitable for me?”, or say “yes” when asked to participate in a trial.

The more that the community understand the role of clinical trials and are aware of how they work, the more likely it is that we will reach today’s target of at least $57million volunteers more quickly, and speed up the rate at which new treatments are delivered to improve the lives of patients.

Use what is left of today, and every day subsequent to make a noise about clinical trials, even if all you do is talk to your family and friends about clinical trials. You never know what a difference it might just make one day.

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