Connecting people
Usha Thakrar (left) and Christopher Recklitis, PhD, confer regularly on the Perini Center's research agenda.
A key part of that change is the appointment of Christopher Recklitis, PhD, as the Perini Center's first director of research and education. A psychologist who has worked with pediatric patients at Dana-Farber for nearly a decade and has appointments at Brigham and Women's and Children's hospitals, Recklitis will be developing an "infrastructure" for survivorship investigators throughout the Institute. That means creating a database of relevant studies and a registry of patients interested in participating in research. Also on his agenda: organizing meetings for investigators, including a Survivorship Research Day.
"My goal is to connect people who may be working in similar areas but aren't aware of it, and to provide concrete resources for them," says Recklitis, whose own work focuses on how cancer survivors adapt psychologically to their disease. "There will be new opportunities for investigators to consult on projects and jointly design studies, and we'll be hiring a statistician for the team."
In advancing survivorship research at the Institute, Recklitis knows his biggest supporters include patients themselves. "In the past, survivor studies have been hampered by the stigma our culture placed on cancer," he notes. "As people realize that their family and friends who've faced this disease remain the same basic people, there's been more openness about survivorship and an increased willingness to take part in research.
"Many former patients want to 'give back' by volunteering for studies," Recklitis adds. "They're aware that their own survival depended on past research."
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