Carol West
Patient Representative
Canada
Carol West often says “no one wants to be a patient partner”, because that means your life experience has included health challenges, In Carol’s case, this means blood clots – two DVTs (deep vein thromboses) followed by a PE (pulmonary embolism). During treatment and recovery, she participated in a clinical trial, because supporting research just seemed like the right thing to do. Some time later, Carol volunteered with the CanVECTOR (Canadian Venous Thromboembolism Clinical Trials and Outcomes Research) Network as a patient partner.
Carol is the current co-lead of CanVECTOR’s Patient Partner Platform. She is learning every day how best to support research by bringing the patient voice and experience to every stage of the research process, from early design and recruitment of subjects, to analysis of findings and communication of results. She is very interested in efforts which strive for harmonization and standardization, and which recognize the importance of knowledge translation. She is grateful for the extraordinary people who surround her in CanVECTOR and beyond, and for this award.
