Meet our guest listener
Kathy Smith: Kathy Smith is a cancer survivor and a cancer care partner actively engaged as a co-author in many healthcare research projects - including Anna M. Chudyk’s work on better understanding patient partners’ perspectives on engagement and exploring future directions for Canadian patient-oriented research. She is a patient research/awards reviewer for many organizations including the Canadian Cancer Society.
Episode Transcript:
Anna:
Hi everyone! Welcome back to onePERspective, a tri-weekly segment in which patient partner Kathy Smith shares a synopsis and key reflections from the previous week’s episode of asPERusual – a podcast for practical patient engagement. My name is Anna Chudyk, and I am asPERusual’s host. This is officially the last episode of season 2 of asPERusual, and onePERspective, by association. But have no fear, I’m already booking tapings for next season, so we definitely do plan to be back sometime in the fall again.
On this episode of onePERspective, Kathy is recapping our previous episode that featured Carrie Costello, Annette Majnemer and Gillian Backlin from the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (or SPOR for Short) CHILD-BRIGHT Network. The network is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Canada’s national health research funder – with the aim of making the future brighter for children with brain-based developmental disabilities and their families through patient engagement (also referred to as patient and public involvement) and patient-oriented research. If you’re unfamiliar with the concepts, patient engagement actively and meaningfully involves patients and caregivers as members of research teams, while patient-oriented research incorporates patient engagement into research that focuses on patient-identified priorities and outcomes. Now that we’re all hopefully on the same page, I’ll hand it over to you Kathy for your onePERspective!
Kathy Smith:
All of the patient engagement entities funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) under Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) have given us insightful and unique models for patient and public involvement. CHILD-BRIGHT is a national network made up of a team 15 funders, 500 researchers, as well as clinicians, policy-makers, parents. What stands out though is the inclusion of young partners with lived, or living, experience (PWLEs). CHILD-BRIGHT authentically integrates children as active team members in all research projects and advisory activities. They are all focused on making brighter futures for children and youth with brain-based developmental disabilities. Hearing Carrie, Annette and Gillian describe the depth and breadth of engagement of their youth sector was something new that piqued my interest. “Nothing abut me without me” is really in play. We listeners learned about special considerations related to authentically engaging younger people and their families. We were given how-to methods we could now incorporate within our own engagement communities. As well, Carrie, Annette and Gillian provided examples of where the PWLE voices powered moving research into improved practice and policies for all children living with brain-based developmental challenges.
For proof of concept, Id like to share a couple of my own personal affirmations of the power of the voices of children with lived experience can contribute. At our regional hospital, a very young child had endured repeated surgeries. Finally, he asked if he could be taken into surgery in a wagon, instead of the big scary gurney. Now, all children at our regional hospital enjoy that wagon ride into surgery. A child engineered this patient-centric improvement in care! A powerful example of “for patients by patients” done by a young PWLE! I’ll share a more personal example convincing me of the power of youth voices sharing their lived experiences to improve patient care. Bloodwork is frequent when you are undergoing chemotherapy. Veins are exquisitely tenders making the draws quite painful. A 7-year old lad in an adjoining cubicle was to receive his bloodwork. He had his arms folded. He refused to unfold them because he saw the technician was not going to use the special equipment for sensitive veins. He stood firm repeating; “I will not unfold my arms until you bring in the “butterfly” – a much smaller, gentler apparatus for blood draws. Asserting his lived experience knowledge and insisting on more responsive patient-centric care, he helped me dealing with my own sore veins and dread of the draw. I asked for, and got, the butterfly too! And that made all the difference. I was so impressed by, and eternally grateful for, that young lad for voicing his concerns and correcting a gap in patient care.
CHILD BRIGHT examines many gaps in (1) early identification; (2) innovative technologies and (3) rehabilitation with input from the entire team. Parents like Carrie, and patients like Gillian, are co-investigators on research projects surrounding their three themes that were developed in partnership with parents and youth: projects that optimize developmental outcomes; projects that integrate mental health support into care for patients and their families; and projects that redesign health care services to be more responsive to family needs.
Now entering CHILD-BRIGHT’s second phase, the focus will shift to implementing the knowledge gleaned during the past six years in Phase One. I’d like to learn more about their individualized knowledge translation hubs targeted either for clinicians, for parents, or for policymakers always ensuring the concepts equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization and Indigenisation are integrated into the hubs and in all the research activities they undertake.
As for patient involvement, Carrie describes her role as the “connector” between the Steering Committee, the other Patient Liaisons and the public at large. Similarly, I’ve referred to my PPI (Patient and Public Involvement) role as that of a bi-directional “honey bee”. Happy to see how their use of an expert to help them deliberately recruit new members thru targeted social media sites really paid off. And using their “matching tool” then fits the right Patient Liaison to the right project based on the specific information PWLE’s are asked to supply in their onsite application.
Gillian describes her role on the Youth Advocacy Council as that of a consultant – or collaborator - providing the voice lived experience on all committees and working groups or advising researchers. Really great to hear Gillian tell us how much her Youth group has grown and how they now have incorporated Liaison Partners from 13 First Nation groups.
CHILD-BRIGHT’s uniqueness centres on in its focus on youth and the extent of its inclusion of youths with lived experience in all aspects of engagement in research. And CHILD-BRIGHT shares the common struggles of other patient engagement in research (PER) entities surrounding recognition, remuneration and evaluation of success. It is likely even more challenging dealing with special issues working with youth as well as working with adults. Their heart is in the right place. They are united in purpose and their focus is on an underserved group: children and youth with brain-based developmental disabilities. I am grateful this podcast enlightened me about CHILD-BRIGHT. Thank you Anna, Annette, Carrie and Gillian!
PERsonally Speaking
1, Really appreciated learning about a patient engagement group of children and youth and their families. Really impressed at the depth and breadth of youth participation – even as co-authors of research!
2. Again, we encounter the common theme of the importance of authentic bi-directional relationship building and the patience of time and whole lota money needed to build a successful and meaningful collaboration between patients and practitioners and policymakers.
3. And again we see a PER group still working out the fine details surrounding recognition, remuneration and evaluation of engagement.
Points to Ponder
Final words to close out season 2. Each specific engagement entity will always have their own special priorities to deal with in their own special way, But all sites have common features of PER that I hope we can amalgamate into one, standard pan-Canadian PER agency. This common entity would have a repository matching a researcher request with best-fit, vetted PWLEs. And it would include dedicated PER Navigators to handle the administrative tasks for both the PWLE’s and the researchers.
Wishing you all a happy, safe and healthy, fun-filled summer!
Anna:
Thanks so much Kathy. I can’t thank you enough for all of the time and energy you have poured into onePERspective and the wonderful insights that you have brought to all of us. Thank you to all of our listeners; to those of you who have helped spread the word about the podcast and sent me supportive emails; to our guests who have shared their time, experiences, and wisdom; to Bryn Robinson and Roger Stoddard who were my original cohosts and helped make this podcast a reality; and to Bre Kelly and Sasha Kullman who have been huge helps behind the scenes. Lastly I would also like to thank my mentor Annette Schultz and the CIHR POR Awards - Transition to Leadership Stream Phase 1 and 2 awards for their support in helping me establish my patient-oriented research program, which led to this podcast.
I hope you all have a great summer and I look forward to coming back with Season 3 sometime in the fall. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to subscribe to our podcast’s newsletter by visiting asperusual.substack.com so that you are kept up to date with podcast updates, or to add me to LinkedIn or X by searching Anna M. Chudyk on your web browser as I also post notifications there. If you have any ideas on how we can make asPERusual even better next season, be sure to send me an email at anna.asperusual@gmail.com. Big hugs to you all and until next time, let's keep working together to make patient engagement in research the standard or As PER Usual.
S2E9.5 - onePERspective