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Medicine for the Public
The 2002 Medicine for the Public event, sponsored by the Clinical Center, was held September 17 – October 29. This lecture series offers the public a unique opportunity to learn about the stories of science at NIH. Each of the six featured lectures this past year drew approximately 400 attendees from across the region. 2002 topics included bioterrorism, genetics of speech and communication disorders, coping with anxiety and depression in uncertain times, nutritional therapies for age-related eye diseases, the teen brain, and endometriosis. Each of these lectures is web archived at http://www.cc.nih.gov/ccc/mfp/past/2002links.html.
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Music star Bono of the rock group U2 hugs Clinical Center patient Lesley Clementi at an airlift of 83,000 shoe box gifts in New York City. Lesley of Lakeland, Florida, served as youth ambassador for Operation Christmas Child, a kids-helping-kids international relief effort that sent more than 6 million such gifts to hurting kids in more than 100 countries.
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Media Relations
Mass media representatives continually call on clinician-researchers at the Clinical Center to serve as the authoritative voice on clinical research and clinical trials. Clinical Center media relations are facilitated by the Office of Communications. The Clinical Center director, Clinical Center-based investigators and NIH institute-based researchers responded to more than 160 media inquiries last year. Interviews were conducted with, and background information was provided for, domestic and international media outlets from broadcast, print, wire service, and Internet-based news organizations. News crews routinely sought out the Clinical Center to film its research facilities. A continuing media pattern reflects the self-empowered nature of patients today. More and more health, science and medical writers and reporters and producers request to speak with actual patient volunteers who participate in research studies. In 2002 NIH Clinical Center scientists and patients were featured in varied media outlets. The program array included major commercial news networks, major daily newspapers and the World Wide Web.
Patient Recruitment and Public Liaison
A total of 9,460 new patients and healthy volunteers were admitted to the Clinical Center in 2002. The Patient Recruitment and Public Liaison Office (PRPL) received more than 45,000 contacts/ inquiries last year, a 6 percent increase over the previous year. Of those, nearly 20,000 were interested in participating in clinical research. PRPL referred more than 10,800 prospective patients to intramural protocols, 3 percent more than 2001. The number of minority contacts increased from 2,808 to 2,985 during 2002. PRPL continues to work with the NIH institutes to develop and implement recruitment campaigns locally and nationally. Outreach activities with physicians, minority communities and senior citizens continued in 2002. To promote involvement of clinical research subjects in protocols, a successful media campaign advertised current studies in communities in Maryland, southern Virginia and West Virginia.
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