About this episode
Bess Stillman discusses the challenges faced by patients seeking access to clinical trials and the bureaucratic hurdles involved.
Bess Stillman ( email ) is a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and writes at Everything Is An Emergency . She is also an excellent storyteller who uses her skills to convey the hectic and at times heart wrenching experiences one faces as an ER doctor. Bess is married to Jake Seliger , who in 2022 was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. She has written a three - part series about the struggles that she and Jake have faced getting him into clinical trials. On the podcast, Bess describes the maddening and cruelly irrational processes that dying patients must go through in order to find access to treatments that might help them. The conversation covers the nightmare of dealing with ClinicalTrials.gov , the requirement that an individual travel across state lines to even know if they are eligible for a trial, and how the government continues to exercise paternalism on the behalf of patients who have no other options other than to take a drug that has not yet been proven to work. Bess also discusses policy ideas she would like to see implemented, and finally shares some stories from her time as an ER doctor. The themes touched on here will be familiar to those who have read about the…
People in this episode
Guest: Bess Stillman
Topics covered
- clinical trials
- healthcare policy
- patient advocacy
- emergency medicine
- bureaucracy in healthcare
Keywords
- clinical trials
- healthcare
- patient experience
- bureaucracy
- FDA
- emergency room
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Mayo Clinic, Everything Is An Emergency, ClinicalTrials.gov, FDA
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