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Attending my first ACRP Annual Conference as a proud member of Black Women In Clinical Research and a 2025 ACRP Continuing Education Grant recipient was nothing short of transformative. This year’s conference in New Orleans brought together more than 1,100 professionals committed to advancing equity, excellence, and innovation in clinical research, and I was honored to be in that number.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted nearly every facet of healthcare, and clinical research was no exception. Amid the challenges, one academic medical center demonstrated notable workforce stability. A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science offers a compelling look at how Duke University in North Carolina managed turnover and internal workforce movement—termed “turbulence”—among clinical research professionals from 2016 through 2024. 

Although the phenomenon of disgruntled employees “ghosting” (also known as “quiet quitting” or “slow quitting”) their workplaces is rife with financial and ethical impacts for the life cycle of clinical research studies, interdisciplinary solutions for detecting and correcting the behavior offer some peace of mind, according to the creators behind a poster that placed in the top three among those presented at ACRP 2025. 

Clinical trials are typically seen as engines of innovation, but for economically disadvantaged individuals, they can also be a gateway to care—particularly for chronic diseases that are expensive to manage. For those living with gastrointestinal (GI) conditions like ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), or NAFLD’s advanced form, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), clinical trials may offer access to diagnostics, treatments, and specialists that would otherwise be out of reach. 

From surviving her “sink or swim” introduction to clinical trials to leading major studies and multiorganizational research efforts, Jeri Burr, RN, PED-BC, MS, CCRC, FACRP, Program Director of the HEAL Pain Management Effectiveness Research Network, Data Coordinating Resource Center, at the University of Utah School of Medicine, has experienced the clinical research enterprise from more angles than she ever expected—both as a professional and as a parent and grandparent.