Updates from the Vice chair
Detailed below is the ongoing work to embed the landscape of SWOG so that everyone sees themselves as an integral part of our community.
Updated January 2025.
(left) Don S. Dizon, MD, Vice Chair, Membership and Accrual, SWOG Cancer Research Network
RFA released for the NCTN Operations Center Competitive Renewal – Membership survey is critical!
With the release of the RFA, I want to take the opportunity to stress the importance of the membership survey. Our goal is to have the majority of SWOG’s membership participate so that we can describe who we are in a more comprehensive way than has traditionally been done, particularly by looking only at gender and institution. Our hope is to be able to describe SWOG in a multi-dimensional way, to illustrate who we are in a more comprehensive manner. All members in SWOG are encouraged to complete their membership profile as soon as possible. All data will be housed in CRAB to ensure privacy is protected fully. Log in to our homepage to complete your profile.
Updates from Chicago, Fall 2024
A group of SWOG stakeholders have completed a review of our protocol and informed consent templates. This follows work we reported in Seattle which involved a review of the policies and procedures at SWOG to ensure we are intentional when it comes to membership and our group function – important work led by Dana Sparks. This review led to several changes in policy, all of which were reviewed and accepted by the Board of Governors. I am pleased to share that we have embedded the position of the Vice Chair of Membership and Accrual into our policies which engrains SWOG’s deep commitment to belonging and representation. We have completed a review of our protocol and informed consent templates since then, and our suggestions have been passed on to the NCI. Notably, we let our colleagues at CTEP who expressed great interest in our work. Our summary conclusions have been passed on to the NCI for their own internal discussion.
Survey of Committee Leadership to launch. In response to requests from our chairs, the Leadership Council on Representation has received permission to launch a survey of committee chairs, executive officers, and other leadership to better understand how our committees operate. We hope to identify areas of harmonization and where committees might have set up differential processes. If you are in committee leadership, please look out for this!
The Take Action Symposium
Congratulations to Dr. Allison Caban-Holt and the recruitment and retention committee for putting on another fantastic Take Action Symposium. This year we covered Planning for More Representative Clinical Trials, including reviewing the draft guidance from the FDA. It was a SWOG affair with Drs. McDermott, Gandara, and Hesketh all joining this year’s symposium.
Take Advantage of SWOG Resources
With the launch of the membership survey, I have come to understand that our SWOG website is likely not being used to its full potential. There are many resources there to help people understand our structure and our processes, to see data, including the launch of our accrual dashboards. If you do not have access, please contact the operations team (or send me an email). Often times it can be daunting to understand how to work with SWOG, but the information contained for our members should help significantly. I strongly encourage all of us to look through and use it more actively. It’s a great system.
With that, please do reach out to me if you have any questions or advice! The work to ensure we create SWOG as a place of belonging is not a solitary activity – we all learn from each other, and we will all grow together. – Don Dizon, MD