S6.14.2 - Goals of the Stephen A. Harrison Patient Advocacy Fellowship Program

Send us Fan MailIn June, the Fatty Liver Foundation officially launched the Stephen A. Harrison Patient Advocacy program and announced its first class of 20 Fellows. In today's conversation, the program's organizers, Fatty Liver Foundation President Wayne Eskridge and Program Co-ordinator Elena Samsonova, share the program's goals and objectives with Louise Campbell and Roger Green. The bulk of this conversation focuses on the program's goals and scope for its first year. First, though, Harrison Fellow Julie Peyout from Canada describes what it means to her to be part of the program. (Julie's connection was interrupted while her colleagues were answering this question earlier in the roundtable.)Wayne points out that, while the FLF originally focused on NAFLD and NASH, the new nomenclature has led them to broaden their focus to all forms of SLD. (He plans to rebrand as the Steatotic Liver Foundation.)Elena describes the program's four "pillars": Mentorship - Having an experienced advocate guide each Fellow as they pursue the next steps in their advocacy.Education - Learning more about SLD.Networking - Connecting with other advocates and industry decision-makers at conferences.Fellowship - Supporting each other as they grow new skills and have new experiences. Wayne elaborates on some of the "robust flow of information" the Fellows will receive. He focuses on three areas: what he calls "the nuts and bolts of the regulatory process", clinical trials from the researcher and trialist perspectives and more general information about how different functions inside a pharmaceutical company work. As the conversation winds down, Roger cites this podcast's mission to "make a big fat dent in MASH" and asks the Fellows about the dent they anticipate making. Elena responds with a story from the previous week's meetings, during which another Fellow stated that when she has participated in trials, she has never received information on what the trial results and learnings actually showed. Elena describes watching clinicians and trialists respond by discussing ways participants could receive such information in the future.