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The UW Medical School is offering an exciting new lecture series this fall that explores how clinical research has changed the way doctors treat their patients. This Mini-Medical School Program, beginning Tuesday evening, is open to the public and should have a broad appeal among anyone with an interest in human health.
\Our hope is that it will benefit anybody interested in disease treatment, from patients undergoing clinical care or their friends and relatives of patients, to anyone who has an interest in advances in health care,"" said Paul DeLuca, vice dean of the UW-Madison Medical School and an organizer of the project. ""This program is targeted to the public.""
Judy Van Kirk of the Office of Clinical Trials, believes the general public and students alike would greatly benefit from taking in a lecture.
""We would really like to attract a wide variety of participants,"" Van Kirk said. ""The talks will be medical, but they will be understandable to nonscientists.""
Van Kirk noted there will be time for questions from the audience at the end of each talk.
Information gained from clinical trials with human subjects has been a major driving force in advances in disease treatment, and the extent the UW-Madison is involved in this kind of research is a significant focus of the first-year series.
""UW is well qualified to offer this program, we have a huge academic research center,"" DeLuca said. ""There are currently hundreds of research trials currently in progress, with thousands of participants.""
DeLuca said that any given program, such as breast cancer, may involve hundreds of volunteers, over several years, and that volunteers are critical to the process.
""People who volunteer to be clinical subjects do it because they hope to help researchers learn to treat patients better,""DeLuca said. ""It's really important for the public to know that it is safe and efficacious to participate in these trials.""
Dr. Nancy K. Sweitzer, who will discuss research on heart disease, sid she agrees on the importance of clinical trials.
""I think that we all lose sight sometimes of how important medical research has been in development of medical practices that have really changed lives in America,"" Sweitzer said. ""The impact is enormous. The thousands of people each year who volunteer for such studies are really affecting the lives of every one of us.""
""I think anyone with heart disease who comes will be glad they live today and not in the '60s."" Sweitzer said.
In addition to heart disease, many other topics will be covered, including cancer, infections and asthma and how clinical research has furthered treatment of these diseases. The underlying theme of the program is stressing the importance of how research studies have improved the way doctors treat patients.
""Not only drugs,"" DeLuca said. ""But also new and evolving techniques are studied, allowing better patient care.""
The lecture series, made possible with the support of an educational grant from Pfizer, begins Sept. 17 at Union South and runs each Tuesday at 7 p.m. for six weeks. For further information, contact the Office of Clinical Trials at 265-6507 or on the Web.
