Project Funding Details

This project is a career development award for Saima Siddiqui, MD. The award will allow Dr. Siddiqui to study advanced research methods, teach medical students and residents about cancer care, and carry out a research project. The goal of the research project is to improve the care of cancer patients in the period after they are first diagnosed. Often, a patient''s cancer is discovered or confirmed in primary care. What follows is a referral to the appropriate cancer specialists for definitive treatment. This transition from primary to specialty care is stressful for patients and presents challenges to the health system. Research shows that the transition is often not handled as well as it could be. The researchers in this project will interview cancer patients diagnosed in the past six months and their family members to understand the health system''s successes and failures in the time following cancer diagnosis. Specifically, the researchers are interested in the "hand-off" from primary care to cancer specialists. To what extent did there seem to be a real collaboration? What worked well and what didn''t? Were the various doctors'' roles and responsibilities clear? To understand the health care side, the researchers will also interview primary care clinicians and cancer specialists to understand their perspectives on how their collaborations work currently and how they could be improved. The research will lead to collaborations between primary care clinicians and cancer specialists that are more sensitive to patients'' needs during this critical period. Quality of care should also improve as a system is created to define roles and best practices for collaboration.

This project is a career development award for Saima Siddiqui, MD. The award will allow Dr. Siddiqui to study advanced research methods, teach medical students and residents about cancer care, and carry out a research project. The goal of the research project is to improve the care of cancer patients in the period after they are first diagnosed. Often, a patient''s cancer is discovered or confirmed in primary care. What follows is a referral to the appropriate cancer specialists for definitive treatment. This transition from primary to specialty care is stressful for patients and presents challenges to the health system. Research shows that the transition is often not handled as well as it could be. The researchers in this project will interview cancer patients diagnosed in the past six months and their family members to understand the health system''s successes and failures in the time following cancer diagnosis. Specifically, the researchers are interested in the "hand-off" from primary care to cancer specialists. To what extent did there seem to be a real collaboration? What worked well and what didn''t? Were the various doctors'' roles and responsibilities clear? To understand the health care side, the researchers will also interview primary care clinicians and cancer specialists to understand their perspectives on how their collaborations work currently and how they could be improved. The research will lead to collaborations between primary care clinicians and cancer specialists that are more sensitive to patients'' needs during this critical period. Quality of care should also improve as a system is created to define roles and best practices for collaboration.