16
AT T H E E N D O F T H E C H A I N THERE ARE PEOPLE Dante Alducin
THE EXPERT’S OPINION
Q.F.B. with the Specialization in Leading People and Teams program by the University of Michigan. He has 12 years of experience in Clinical Research. Founder of Blast! Academy and host of the Ruido Blast! podcast.
One day in 2012 my cell phone rang, I was on one of those endless work tours around the country that I was doing over and over again as a clinical monitor. I wasn’t expecting any kind of important calls; I had dozens of them a day. But even today, I remember what was one of the most disturbing tests I had to overcome in my entire career. The headquarters of the pharmacist for whom my company worked had decided to discontinue the only active patient in a very old breast cancer study. They needed the doctor in question to terminate his only patient, so they could close the study. Usually there would be no problem, except
that this patient was still being treated and if the medication was withdrawn, the disease would probably return. The doctor confirmed my suspicions, if they took her off the medication, the patient had a good chance of relapsing and eventually dying. How did we get into this situation? One of the biggest questions I have had for so many years is how, in an environment dedicated to the health of patients on a daily basis, we forget that we are dealing with people. Not only from the health staff to the patients, but among ourselves as a team. I don’t think there’s a
