Today we open our Professional Profiles Section with Lidia Nieto and Ainhoa Arocena, who belong to the Clinical Trial Nursing team.
Could you tell us what your work involves in the Advanced Therapies Unit?
Lidia: we’re the reference nurses for Onkologikoa patients participating in a clinical trial; we manage and coordinate their whole process, and we record all of the data for the promoters and pharmaceutical companies.
Ainhoa: we’re the reference between our hospital and promoters worldwide. As nurses, we’ve broadened our skills to include research.
For how long have you been working in this Unit?
Lidia: I’ll soon have been here for two years.
Ainhoa: I’ve been here for four years.
And at Onkologikoa?
Lidia: I’ve been with the hospital for 8 years, and before joining this unit I had worked in a variety of services.
Ainhoa: I joined Onkologikoa 12 years ago, and the time I spent at other units was key to understanding how the whole hospital works and being able to coordinate with the different areas.
You’re still very young and you have a long professional career ahead of you. How do you see your future? Would you like to continue developing your work in the same area?
Lidia: Research is the future and we love working on it. We also know that the area has a great deal of possibilities to evolve and develop.
Ainhoa: it’s already hugely evolving, there’s increasingly more work, more treatments, more data to be collected… and our work has to be increasingly more detailed. Also, seeing the results of our work is very often exciting.
What’s the most exciting part of participating in a clinical trial for a patient?
Ainhoa: well these are patients who will be much more closely observed and monitored (due to the actual trial methodology); they will also have access to treatments that are not available for the general public and which could be highly beneficial.
Lidia: They’re very fortunate. All drugs, prior to their commercialisation, have gone through this process, and being able to benefit from their results is very fortunate.
Ainhoa: and we mustn’t forget that participating in a trial means that the patient is more intensely controlled and observed, making them feel more closely monitored and cared for.
