Ella Millbank Foshay Cancer Center

Jupiter Medical Center’s Ella Millbank Foshay Cancer Center offers cancer trials in and for its Florida community. But providing care close to home is just part of the oncology clinical research nurse’s role in the clinical trials unit.

As a clinical research nurse, Jeanine Secor, RN, BSN, educates patients about the clinical trial, consents the patients, and oversees their chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormone treatment, or surgery. “We really are a liaison between the study, the doctor, and the patient,” she tells The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA, adding that she also collects data and forwards them to each study’s sponsor.

These studies vary by disease site—breast, lung, ovaries, skin—and by type—clinical trials groups or pharmaceutical trials. As an affiliate of Mt. Sinai Medical Center’s Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP), Jupiter Medical Center offers trials from the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, the Gynecological Oncology Group, the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, the Eastern Cooperative Group, and the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group.

Keeping track of patients in approximately 30 open trials, Secor acts “almost like a navigator through the trial or treatment regimen.” She coordinates each patient’s laboratory testing, chemo therapy, and office visits as well as scans and surgeries. And depending on the trial, patients can be followed for 5 years or longer; some for a lifetime, says Secor. “The patients really look to the oncology clinical research nurse as their primary resource.”

As this resource, Secor coordinates her patients’ supportive care needs as well. If a patient is experiencing certain limitations, she can connect that patient with the center’s physical or occupational therapist. If a patient is experiencing fatigue or wound care issues, she can connect that patient with the sleep center or hyperbaric wound care department. All the hospital’s re sources are available to her patients, according to Secor. This includes programs meeting psychosocial needs, such as support groups and the center’s Look Good…Feel Better program.

In addition, like all clinical research nurses, she follows US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations for clinical trials, which include adherence to the principles of good clinical practices and adequate human subject protection. Secor also follows policies designed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which reviews and monitors research involving human subjects to ensure protection of the patients’ rights, welfare, and privacy. For example, at Jupiter Medical Center, all trials are designed to meet FDA regulations as well as go through an IRB affiliated with Mt. Sinai Medical Center’s CCOP and an IRB affiliated with Jupiter Medical Center. This process ensures that even if the research is performed in the physician’s office, the clinical research nurse provides care in keeping with government standards.

The Call

Even with her demanding job, Secor loves the oncology field and taking care of cancer patients. “It’s a mutual admiration between patient and nurse. And the patient, I have found, is so appreciative of everything I do.” Her previous work as a director of nursing, an acute care nurse, and a nurse manager on an oncology unit prepared her to work as a clinical research nurse. “Because of my background, administratively and clinically it was a good fit for me. With research nursing, it’s extremely detail oriented and it fits well with a bit of a type A personality,” says Secor.

Working as a clinical research nurse can be approached from many paths. Nurses can migrate to the work from other specialties or take courses in clinical research from an associate, undergraduate, or graduate degree program. For those interested, the Society of Clinical Research Associates provides educational programs, certification, and a forum for professionals to exchange information.

“I think that helping to find a cure is just so rewarding. Hopefully, 10 years from now there will be a cure for a specific cancer, because maybe a little part of what I did with my patients helped.”