After 24 years, we are preparing our family home for sale. It turns out that sanding down walls is a lot like looking back at a life. You see the layers, the repairs, and the history. As I stand here covered in the dust of two decades, the lessons I learned during my years in hospice have never felt more urgent. Hospice teaches you that we don’t actually own anything. Not a house, not a title, not a status. We are just stewards for a little while. The only thing we truly leav

We’ve reached the end of our first series at HeartBridge Collective (HBC): The ICH E6(R3) Patient Experience Lens. Over the last few weeks, we’ve looked past the legal jargon and complex industry rules to ask one simple question: What does the future of clinical research actually feel like for you as a patient? If you missed any part of the journey, you can find the full breakdown of each topic here: https://www.maryburrell.com/heartbridgecollective Why This Matters Now The

This is the fifth and final post in our series explaining the new global guidelines (ICH E6(R3)) through real patient experience, not complicated policy terms. In clinical research, there are a lot of people involved: Doctors, study coordinators, sponsors, and research staff. Each person has a role, and each role has responsibilities. On paper, this is supposed to be clear. The Reality of the “Shuffled” Patient For patients, it often isn’t that clear. They’re told, “Call us i

As we get ready to celebrate our first birthday on May 14th , I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. We’ve spent the last year proving that a patient-led movement is exactly what this industry needs. But to make sure HeartBridge Collective (HBC) is here for the long haul, I’m making a deliberate choice to shift our focus inward for a few months. Think of it as a "Power-Up" phase. We are strengthening our foundation so we can show up even stronger for the community in Year Two.