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Patients and the public have a history of participation and advocacy in cancer research, generally for the benefit of future cancer patients rather than themselves. Participation is necessary if drugs and treatments are to be properly tested. Advocacy adds a unique perspective that enables the integration of two valuable and powerful viewpoints, the experiential disease and treatment knowledge, needs and priorities of the patient, and the professional disease and treatment knowledge and priorities of the researcher or clinician. This synergistic combination is a key enabler for focused and relevant diagnostic and treatment advances in cancer research. However, recruitment of the right numbers and profile of patients and the public into participation and advocacy remains a challenge. This book seeks to take the mystery out of participation and advocacy in cancer research trials by explaining the whole process, in lay terms, in the hope that more people will be encouraged to participate and become advocates.
About the author
Ray Gardner was born in 1947. He worked at Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years in London, The Hague, and Houston. He retired in 2005 and then studied for a science degree at The Open University.
In 2018, Ray was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis and prostate cancer. Following successful treatment, he joined the Patient/Carer Advisory Group and the Senior Adult Oncology Programme at the Royal Marsden as a patient advocate. He then became involved in advocacy at the Institute of Cancer Research. He has also participated in a cancer research trial.
Ray is married, with two daughters, a son-in-law and two grandchildren.
