Better Investigator Meetings

I recently had the privilege of sitting through four investigator meetings, two in the United States and two in Europe. They comprised speaker after speaker with slide after slide.  Topics included the disease, the drug, the PK, the efficacy and safety, statistical modeling, and then the process by which patients were to be enrolled and cared for throughout the study. Occasionally, at the end of a presentation, the speaker would ask multiple choice questions about the topic just covered, and the audience could select an answer using a remote control response device.  The percentage of correct answers ranged from a high of 70% to a low of 35%. One of the key scientific presentations was delivered by a young doctor with a foreign accent, her hair in her face, and a specialty in another disease state.  She was hesitant, focused primarily on her notes, and unsuccessful in creating any excitement or passion for the long and arduous assignment the investigators had in front of them. Another similar problem occurred with the presentation delivered by the statistician who had devised the null hypothesis and necessary endpoints for the study.  He had a severe foreign accent, spoke extremely quickly, and although he was appealing and expressive, was for the most part unintelligible.  I surveyed about five people after his talk and they all complained that they could not understand a word he said. Some of the other speakers were quite effective, in that they stated their objective at the start, showed an agenda slide, and then marched the audience through a slide deck with varying degrees of energy, volume, and personality. Each meeting lasted two days, even though the investigators themselves only needed to be there for the first day, while their assistants did in fact need to be there for both days. The sponsor is no doubt obliged to document that a meeting was held, and that thorough and precise instruction was given.  But might the sponsor accomplish more than checking the regulatory “tick box” and actually create real learning, while at the same time creating a strong attachment to their company within a community of influential doctors? We all know that a process such as the one described above is not optimal for teaching adults how to do something.  Adults actually need to “do” what they are being asked to learn, in addition to listening to instruction and reading slides. Adults need to practice active problem solving, engage in role plays and case studies, and participate in debate.  Hands-on learning gets better results and better reviews. It’s time to get creative with investigator meetings.