Emphasize the Benefits
Discuss the nuances of the clinical trial you’re looking to get enrollment for. A lot of trials I work with here at Rush are interventional cardiology focused on procedures, like heart valve replacement or coronary interventions. Here at Rush, we have a good population of Black patients who get involved in cardiology clinical trials for treatments.
Let’s say a patient has an aortic valve stenosis, or a tight heart valve. One option for that patient is to either go through surgery and get their chest cracked open to get the valve fixed. Or we do this percutaneous procedure where we just thread a catheter through your groin, get to your heart, blow up a balloon, and put in the new heart valve. Patients have the choice to have a recovery time of weeks because their chest was cracked open from surgery and then have a big scar there for the rest of their life—versus doing this minimally invasive trial procedure where you get to go home in the next day or two. So you can start to see that patients, of course, would prefer to not have to do the surgery because we explained the benefits of the trial procedure.
And so a lot of those patients that have a procedure like the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) tend to be happier for that reason. So they come out and they’re satisfied and they feel happier because they did not have to have their chest cracked open.
Be Honest With Patients
If a patient ever senses that you’re lying to them about the risks of getting into the trial, they’re not going to trust you. I don’t care what your skin color is. So explaining to them what the risk might be of getting into that clinical trial, as well as the benefits, is key. Tell them certain risks that we as Black folks get concerned about, but also how we’re taking care of those risks so that it doesn’t apply to the patient as much as possible. Share what they and society can gain down the line as well.
Make sure that whatever consent form you’re having them fill out is very explicit in explaining the trial.
Involve Community Advocates and the Church
Other doctors have brainstormed on involving community advocates, whether it’s pastors in churches or barber shops or salons—places where Blacks or underrepresented minorities, in general, congregate with people that they trust, with people that they see as part of their community. For all of these people who are advocates, explaining to them exactly what the trial is about, exactly what the risks might be that are involved, exactly what the gains might be, and then listening to them also about ways they may go about it.