6 Ways to Establish Black Patient Trust in Clinical Trials, According to a Cardiologist

I’m a clinician and professor at Rush University Hospital working in the up-and-coming field of cardio-oncology. My interest in clinical trial research came from my time as a cardiology fellow at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Now, I carry on a lot of research in my field of cardio-oncology studying heart disease in cancer patients. As I got involved in research I had to enroll as many patients as I could, whether it was Black, white, Asian—it didn’t matter. And when I saw how difficult it could be to enroll certain groups of patients, I started to ask questions. So as a Black doctor, if I didn’t see myself represented in a trial, how am I going to translate that trial to my patients that are Black? One pretty prevalent thing, and the message that you always get consistently from people, is that it’s difficult to enroll Black patients. And so the question always comes up—why is that? What are the reasons for this and why are there such disparities? It often starts with doctor-patient rapport.   How Doctors Can Improve Rapport With Black Patients Around Clinical Trials Building Trust A few things influence Black people to try clinical trials....