Opinion

Bree Burks: I hardly have words when I see the way my family member is tracking the next two years of her clinical trial visits.

Photo taken from: Bree Burks / LinkedIn

Sep 1, 2023, 23:35

Bree Burks: I hardly have words when I see the way my family member is tracking the next two years of her clinical trial visits.

Bree Burks, Vice President of Strategy, Site Solutions at Veeva Systems, posted the following on LinkedIn:

“I hardly have words when I see the way my family member is tracking the next two years of her clinical trial visits. I generally try to find the silver lining, but in this scenario, I am struggling.

See if you can decode the craziness in these forms. Took me a minute.

Think about what it’s like to carry this around in a folder to try and determine when you have critical doctor visits coming up. Missing a visit means you miss your meds. (It’s not like she can just pickup her study meds at a pharmacy.) In order to get her meds, she has to cross state lines and take off of work. There is a lot of planning going into these visits.

What if she spills coffee on this? What if she miscalculates a date and the entire thing gets out of wack? How will it impact her hourly job if she doesn’t give the right advanced notice for all of the days off she needs? What if she leaves this schedule at home and needs to reference it when making another doctor appointment (as she has a multitude of caregivers right now)?

How is it possible that the patients relying on trials to extend their life are using paper tools like this to manage their study visits? The fact that I work for a company that has solutions in use today that would alleviate this problem for her is maddening for all of us.”

Bree Burks: I hardly have words when I see the way my family member is tracking the next two years of her clinical trial visits.