Leah Szumita, MSN: Nurse Navigators Widen Access to Clinical Trials

Leah Szumita, MSN, has spent her career learning firsthand what patients need most during a health crisis: clarity, support, and someone in their corner. As senior director of the Clinical Trial Support Center (CTSC) at Blood Cancer United, she now leads a team dedicated to closing the gap between patients and the clinical trials that could change their outcomes.

The CTSC began in 2016 as a single part-time nurse navigator role, created after the organization noticed a growing number of calls to its information line from patients confused about clinical trials. Eight years later, the program has grown into a team of 13 nurse navigators who help patients, families, and even health care teams identify and access trials at no cost.

What sets the CTSC apart, Szumita explains, is its personalized, nurse-led model. Each patient is paired with a dedicated navigator for as long as needed; sometimes weeks, often months, occasionally years. Navigators conduct comprehensive clinical, educational, and psychosocial assessments to understand not just a patient’s diagnosis and biomarkers, but their goals, preferences, and real-world barriers to participation. The result is a curated, easy-to-understand list of relevant trials rather than an overwhelming database dump, always intended to support—not replace—conversations with a patient’s existing care team.

Behind the scenes, navigators do extensive detective work: verifying insurance coverage, checking waitlists, and identifying travel resources. As Szumita put it, “We’re little detectives, really pulling together a patchwork quilt of resources to help patients access the care they need.”

That labor pays off. Last fiscal year, the CTSC’s clinical trial enrollment rate for eligible patients reached 20%, far above the national average of 5% to 7% for adult cancer clinical trials. Szumita notes it typically takes at least 22 navigator interactions per patient to achieve enrollment, each one, she says, representing a potential crack in the road that patients might otherwise fall through on their own. For Szumita, that math underscores exactly why the work matters: without a dedicated guide, too many patients simply never make it to a trial that could offer them hope.