A clinician from SERGAS believes that the clinical study brings great opportunities for the patient and the doctors
Dr. Mercedes Salgado is an Adjunct Physician on Medical Oncology at the University Hospital Complex of Ourense – CHUO-SERGAS. She is one of the clinicians engaged with patients’ surveillance in the PERSIST’s clinical study.
The concern for the well-being and quality of life of patients beyond recovery after surgery and adjuvant treatment has motivated Dr. Salgado to participate in the clinical study. Although her relationships with the patients have not changed during the study, she has noticed that the attitude of the participating patients is closer and more trusting. Dr. Salgado’s expectations from the study are related to greater safety to the patient once the scheduled treatments are finished and the follow-up phase is completed. ‘In this sense, by strengthening the confidence of the patient, I trust in a closer and earlier contact that can reduce their anxiety and favour their integration after the treatments as cancer survivors’, she says.
The clinician believes that the positive results from the study may change the clinical practice – a temporary space should be created in the consultations to review the data provided by the app for each patient and give a quick response to their concerns, either through messages of reassurance in situations without clinical relevance, or with specific advancements of visits in those with relevance. ‘It is a very interesting area of work and with great opportunities for the patient and the doctors who attend to them’, Dr. Salgado says.
She also recommends that applications and technical development should be a little more developed prior to the clinical phase, as system failures confer a degree of anxiety on participants. ‘Once the initial technical problems have been overcome, we will be able to see what it can bring us from a clinical point of view’, Dr. Salgado concludes.