Research Team Dynamics and Empowerment
Researchers Discuss
Woo: The first and highest value is respect for people. And I told everybody in my study, "I'm going to be whipping you for recruitment, where are the numbers, the cases." But if you are there and someone is distraught and anguished, be a human being first. Be a doctor, be a nurse, be whatever you've been trained to be first. Take care of that person, I will be okay.
Edwards: I think we all hear, "I'm not interested in doing research," and I think that's because we don't clearly communicate what the purpose of the study is and what the potential value is.
Woo: You should present a series of facts, and the person who hears them should reach a particular conclusion from those facts. And when you give them the same conclusion, now you've truly communicated.
France: You need as a coordinator need to take time to know exactly what you are working with and why. Understand why the research is being done so that when you speak to somebody, you can address that. And then also the medical condition that you're working with so that you can help explain that.
Reimer: So it helps if you're introduced by a member of the clinical team. If they introduce you and make sure that the family knows that you are part of the team that's taken care of them, rather than being a separate person - a separate group - that's sort of invading, but that you can be part of their whole care plan.
France: You know, the extreme efficiency that sometimes you have to have, clinically, just to get things done is really not the way to best conduct research at the consenting and engagement level.
Woo: We had a control recruiter who was recruiting 95% of the controls I sent to their site. Other sites were recruiting 60 to 70%. When I asked him what he was doing, it was mostly his energy and his passion for recruiting, and he would send multiple contacts within a week. It had nothing to do with his race, it had nothing to do with the race of the participants, it had nothing to do with any of that. All that mattered was that he made that extra effort.
France: I would say invariably, it still comes down to making a personal connection, more than anything else.