Patients are teachers, too
by Dawn Stapleton
Illustration by Megan Rose
If physician-scientists and researchers were to pick a motto, a likely candidate might be "need fosters innovation." Throughout the ages, patient needs have been the drivers of medicine. It is through patients that questions are identified, pushing scientists forward to find the answers.
At Dana-Farber, clinicians learn from patients every day. Insights can come while listening to a woman's experiences on a new drug regimen, studying genetic information to tailor therapies for her particular disease, or analyzing data from a clinical trial. It is with this knowledge that researchers develop new treatments and improve patient care.
"The process starts even before someone arrives," says New Patient Coordinator Madeline Teixeira, who works in gynecologic oncology. "There's a lot of information to gather before a woman comes in for her first appointment. This not only tells us about her individual treatment, but also contributes medical history data that helps researchers see trends."
These records may reveal which subsets of tumors responded best to a particular drug, or experienced a certain side effect. Such findings help scientists formulate and test new hypotheses about how that drug works.
Surveys are another way researchers learn from patients. Though one treatment may not be more effective than another, surveys probing the impact on physical or emotional well-being can help determine which therapies offer the best quality of life.
"The way we perform medicine today is based on what was learned from previous patients," explains Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, director of the Program for Young Women with Breast Cancer. "There are a number of things that can only be addressed by directly asking a patient," she adds. "For example, in trying to better understand the ability to get pregnant after breast cancer, I can tell from medical records whether a woman became pregnant or not, but I don't know if she tried and was unsuccessful. Without data like that, the research may be useless."
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