Unlearning In Clinical Trials – The Cure To Repeating Our Mistakes

How many stories have you heard where mistakes – made by clinical research sites – caused problems in a study, or even worse, patient injury? The practice of medicine is inherently risky given the consequences of mistakes or misinformation. This is even more the case in research, where we are layering on an extra level of complexity with the protocol. Often, we ask investigators to do things that are counterintuitive to their medical training, such as curbing bedside manner and not providing emotional support to a patient in a study if the resulting placebo effect could impact the end points.