Gynecologic oncologist shares career path, tips for becoming involved in clinical trials
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B.J. Rimel, MD, recently named medical director of the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Clinical Trials Office, shared her personal journey to gynecologic oncology and the important role allies can play when facing discrimination.
In her new position, Rimel works as a liaison between principal investigators, research staff and leadership. She also monitors ongoing trials to ensure quality and make sure the needs of staff are being met.
As an associate professor of gynecologic oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Rimel said that both her choice to focus on oncology and to specialize in gynecology were tied closely to events and people in her life.
Personal influences
Rimel’s first experience with cancer occurred on her very first day of medical school.
“My college roommate and best friend called me to tell me she’d pulled over at the side of the road because she was driving to work and had terrible abdominal pain, had been taken to the ED by paramedics and was found to have a 9 cm liver tumor,” she said. “She passed away my second year of medical school of widespread cholangiocarcinoma. Her struggles and experiences during that time really highlighted for me what cancer was and the sort of roller coaster that treatment was for her.”
Despite a successful surgery and period of remission, Rimel’s friend experienced recurrence. Rimel watched as continued treatment and changes to her friend’s life affected both her and her family.
“It had an impact on me while I was in medical school, taking in all of information I was being given about the human body and disease and pathology, but then I was seeing it in the context of human suffering from a person I so very much cared about,” Rimel said.
The choice to specialize in gynecology came from a similar place of empathy.
“We refer to ourselves as the specialty in cancer that does diagnosis to death,” Rimel said. “We take care of our patients when they’re diagnosed, we handle their surgeries, then we go on to chemotherapy and whatever they need. We do all this hopefully to a cure, but for others, we are with them [through] every step of the process.”
Rimel said that she found that aspect of treating the patient throughout their cancer journey compelling and that she appreciated the profound relationship that builds between a gynecologic oncologist and his or her patient.
Getting started in clinical research
Getting into clinical research for oncology is multifaceted, Rimel said, noting that there are several ways to get started, from joining a laboratory to providing support and working with patient enrollment for clinical trials.
“People who are already involved with cancer care but who want to start working with clinical trials can start by enrolling or advocating for their patients to join a clinical trial and then working as a coinvestigator to study their patient’s experience,” she said. “It just depends on what level of interest a person has.”
Rimel continued that she feels privileged to have been able to write for clinical trials and serve as a national investigator on trials but that it took many years of learning the different steps to reach her current positions.
She also highlighted the excitement she felt from her experiences in two different trials that led to the approval of new therapies.
“I’ve been in many clinical trials that didn’t lead to that, but two of them led to approval of drugs that have really benefited my patients, and I find it magical to be able to remember when this new therapy was coming out,” Rimel said.
Unsure initially not only if the therapies would work but how long any positive effect would last, Rimel spoke about how important it was later seeing at least a couple of her patients reach long-term responses and gain years of life.
“Those two experiences impacted me and my desire to participate in more clinical trials and offer them to more of my patients, because every time that happens, it’s just another arrow in my quiver against cancer,” Rimel said.
Confronting discrimination
On the topic of overcoming issues faced my women in medicine, Rimel said that she has undeniably faced situations of discrimination related to her sexual orientation.
“I am a cisgender lesbian physician and I’ve been out the entirety of my medical practice,” she said. “I was out in medical school, in residency and fellowship, and as an attending. I have a female partner and two children, and my experience in living that truth has not always been positive.”
She shared that there have been times that other physicians or patients assumed or said things to her, about her or reflected opinions about her sexual orientation in ways that always caused her pain.
However, she said that she has felt privileged to also have advocates and allies who have been with her every step of her training, from friends in medical school to faculty during her residency and fellowship.
“In fellowship, I had incredible mentorship and allies who helped me find a job when I thought I wouldn’t be able to. Every time you go for an interview to be an attending, they ask you to bring your spouse, which was a very big shock to some of the places I interviewed,” Rimel said. “My spouse is gender-nonconforming, and I know for a fact that resulted in the loss of an opportunity to work somewhere because the people were not comfortable having somebody like me on staff.”
In spite of these experiences, Rimel emphasized that she feels lucky to have had her allies by her and that her personal resilience comes from the fact that she has such a supportive spouse and friends, as well as supportive colleagues in gynecologic oncology who have always advocated for her.
“My experience is that I have not always been able to effectively advocate for myself,” Rimel said. “I’m not always in the room when there are decisions being made about me, but the people who are my allies have always been there and I am incredibly grateful to them for standing up for me when they had nothing to gain except knowing that they were on the side of justice.”
For more information:
B.J. Rimel, MD, can be reached at bobbie.rimel@cshs.org.
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