Suzanne
Citizen Advisor
Suzanne is a retired school administrator who works part-time as a university instructor. Suzanne first became involved in research as a participant in a food and diet study at a local hospital. When the study ended, she provided consent to be contacted for future research, which led to her involvement with the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN) Citizen’s Panel. The panel consists of volunteer citizens from across Ontario who work together to ensure that the ODPRN points out issues of importance to the public, and helps to hold the organization responsible for including these priorities in all aspects of their research. Suzanne’s role as a citizen is to attend bi-monthly meetings and provide feedback on current research projects and the outcomes. She has learned how the patient voice can contribute to medical research and reframe how medical research is being done. Suzanne’s experience with ODPRN has been positive, which is partly due to the respectful environment created by the researchers. Each researcher listens to, engages with, and provides meaningful feedback to each individual on the panel. Suzanne recommends that researchers who want to partner with patients/caregivers in research should have similar qualities. She also recommends that persons interested in research partnerships should give it a chance because the experience is rewarding regardless of how difficult the research process may seem.
More content
- Learning From Others – SuzanneSuzanne learned that she could contribute as a patient partner in many different ways
- Supports needed – SuzanneSuzanne would like to learn more about how to read and interpret research data
- Balancing time and commitments – SuzanneFor Suzanne, participation has been manageable but wishes there was more time
- Defining partnerships – SuzanneSuzanne prefers there were common terms used for patient partners
- Path to involvement – SuzanneIn Suzanne’s role as a patient advisor, she helped to create online training videos