Associate Professor Marini Says Accessible Oncology Care is Simply ‘Common Sense’

The rules of hockey are rather simple: shoot the puck into the opponent’s net, don’t enter the offensive zone before the puck does and don’t get too many penalties along the way. 

As coach of his daughter’s travel hockey team, these are rules that Clinical Associate Professor Bernard Marini, PharmD’12, BCOP knows all too well. And one day, he hopes accessible cancer care is just as simple as the rules on the hockey rink. He’s not standing by waiting for that change, though; he’s actively fighting for it every day. 

A Hero in Hematology Practice

Dr. Marini serves as a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Hematology at Michigan Medicine – working on a care team to provide lifesaving services to patients diagnosed with blood cancers, including leukemia and aggressive forms of lymphoma. As the team’s medication expert, he looks at each patient’s genetic makeup, interprets important literature about each drug and interprets clinical trial information to come up with treatment plans. 

“As pharmacists, we are consultants for the physicians because we are the experts in drug therapies,” explained Marini. “Cancer and hematology treatments are so complicated and the data is so complex to try to understand, having a pharmacist on your team to be your ally to help them come to the best decision for patients is invaluable.”

If the treatment plans need adjusting, Marini is one of the first to know, and the first to jump in to work with the doctors and make those changes. 

“We work with the most expensive and dangerous medications that you can imagine — but also the most effective, but only if they’re used in the right setting. We’re there to make sure of that.”

Marini is confident that his patients at Michigan Medicine are receiving world-class treatment, but he knows it’s no secret that there are barriers for so many others to receive this type of care, and that’s why he’s a staunch advocate for accessible oncology practices. 

An Advocate for Accessibility

Working alongside forty colleagues in oncology, Marini brings the pharmacist perspective as a member of Common Sense Oncology, a global organization working to make cancer care more patient-centered and equitable across the world. 

“The founding members of the organizations came from all different areas — patients, patient advocates, people in regulatory positions, leaders of cooperative research groups, oncologists from all over the world, and then one pharmacist — that’s me.”

The organization pushes for change by advocating for better clinical trial design focused on outcomes like survival and quality of life and addressing health disparities to basic cancer treatments. 

“Each year, countries like the United States spend billions of dollars on drugs that make a tiny improvement in outcomes while other countries can’t even get access to basic medications that would have a tremendous benefit on their population’s health,” explained Marini. “This organization is working to close that gap, reframe how we spend that money and make the research agenda much more patient-centered.” 

As a dedicated member of the organization, Marini helps run  a journal club online aimed at teaching other healthcare professionals how to critically evaluate clinical trials to ensure they have a patient-centered approach. 

“I think things like the journal club are small ways that we can change practice over time to make it better for the patients we serve,” said Marini. 

Although Common Sense Oncology is a relatively new organization, launched in the spring of 2023, the team has already published guidelines for the design of phase-three randomized clinical trials. 

“These principles have been presented at several national meeting workshops, including at ASH and ASCO, to help teach these principles to oncologists everywhere, and this is hopefully going to result in more patient-centered trials in the future,” explained Marini.

Marini says it will likely take years and a complete culture shift within the field of oncology to reach their goals of more patient-centered care, but has anecdotally seen more praise and celebration for trials that use patient-centered approaches lately. 

His work to make the world more patient-centered goes far beyond his involvement in Common Sense Oncology. He hosts a podcast with his colleague Anthony Perissinotti, also a hematology pharmacist, on all-things clinical trials.

“We used to nerd out with the hematologists, fellows and residents at work. It seemed like we were having the same conversations and teaching the same things over and over, and I realized that we should just start recording it,” explained Marini.

Marini hopes that, as an educator, whether that be through his work in Common Sense Oncology, behind the microphone of his popular podcast or with his students at Michigan Medicine, he is making a splash in making oncology care more patient-centered and accessible to all.