My personal experience as a clinical research volunteer

At the end of September, I blogged about the important Cancer Prevention Study-3 which came to our hometown Indianapolis, Indiana this month.  Well, I did it…I volunteered for my first clinical research study.    Oh sure, I have taken surveys before, even participated in focus groups, but never a clinical study.  On the day I blogged, I went onto the study website, which was fairly easy to use, and scheduled myself for an appointment at an enrollment site on October 5th.   First mistake I made was to show up at the wrong site.   I arrived at Riverside Park, saw no crowds, and no one seemed to know anything about the study.  Seems I signed up at Riverside for the NEXT day.  No worries, I called the toll free number on the confirmation sheet I had luckily printed out, and the woman on the phone was very helpful in directing me to a site on the West side at IU Health that was open for another hour.

The greeters at IU Health were so friendly and knew exactly how to direct me to the room where the study was being enrolled.  And then, the surprising thing..they thanked me!  I showed up to the room where several dozen folks were filling out forms, talking to study personnel, and giving blood samples.   The whole process including going to the wrong site took less than 2 hours.   I first read and filled out forms.   The questions were very similar to the questions I had spent an hour the day earlier filling out online.   They required that you fill out the personal health survey online prior to the visit or they could turn you away.   I am not sure why they re-asked so many questions? Perhaps to ensure I was the one who filled out the online version?   The questions were quite intimate and detail oriented.  I even had to account for my 2nd hand smoke exposure through all decades of my life.   The woman who consented me was nice and business like. She did look a little startled when I asked here if she was the “consenter.”  I quickly explained who I was with, and she told me she had heard of Pearl.    I have to send in one more form to them, but then I shouldn’t hear from them for another year when they’ll send me a personal health survey to fill out.    And I hope that I never enter the active study arm, becauase that would mean that I had been diagnosed with cancer.  Volunteering for this study felt good, it felt important, it felt selfless.  Learn more at the American Cancer Society website here.

I have decided which study will be my next:  Super Cure in January 2012 which is a great initiative of the the Super Bowl Indianapolis committee and the Susan B. Komen IU Simon Cancer Center Tissue Bank.  Learn more how you can be a tissue donor here.     Stay tuned…I’ll let you know more about my clinical research experiences later.