Experiences of Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee (PRMC) rotations in hematology/oncology training

Background. Trainees in hematology oncology need to learn development and regulation of clinical research protocols. Methods. We hypothesized that rotation on the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Protocol Review and Monitor Committee (PRMC) at our university could improve fellows' understanding of clinical trial development and regulation. Results. Since 1999, 20 fellows in our training program have rotated through either IRB or PRMC for 3 months. We evaluated their experiences by anonymous questionnaire with 13 quantitative, 1 yes-or-no, and 4 open-ended questions and correlated responses to their demographic characteristics. Conclusions. We report here these fellow's experiences in attending these meetings. We also describe other benefits of IRB/PRMC participation in training fellows, and finally propose to other fellowship programs to consider this educational approach as a way of enhancing hematology/oncology training.