Inside Pediatrics Fall/Winter 2024

HEMATOLOGY + ONCOLOGY

Building a National Leader in Clinical Trials BEHIND THE VISION OF GIRISH DHALL, M.D., CHILDREN’S HAS DEVELOPED A TOP CLINICAL TRIALS PROGRAM IN CANCER AND HEMATOLOGY

W hen Girish Dhall, M.D., arrived at Children’s of Alabama in 2019, he inherited a division with a plethora of strengths: great facilities, compassionate physicians and a robust clinical trials program. He knew he was somewhere special. Still, he knew it could be better—a national destination center for research and clinical trials. That became his vision. As he began his new role as director of the Division of Hematology, Oncology, and the Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program, he immediately started work on one of his first objectives—expanding the clinical trials program. Prior to Dhall’s arrival, the hospital offered many clinical trials through the Children’s Oncology Group—the largest consortium in the U.S.—for children who were newly diagnosed with cancer.

For patients who had relapsed or had experienced progression of their disease, however, the options were limited. Dhall knew the hospital would need to join more consortia—groups of hospitals that collaborate to offer large-scale clinical trials that might be impossible for a single institution. For Children’s, joining more consortia would give patients access to a wider array of clinical trials. Dhall and his team of experts began applying for membership in various consortia. Five years later, Children’s has more than doubled the number in which it is enrolled. “What that did,” Dhall said, “is give us access to a large number of clinical trials for this group of patients that we didn’t have great options for.”

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Inside Pediatrics | Children’s of Alabama