Blood or Marrow Transplant Clinical Trial
Official title:
Establishing a BMT Legal Clinic to Support Patients With Cancer Undergoing Blood or Marrow Transplant
The goal of this study is to develop and test the effects of a marrow transplant (BMT) Legal Clinic established through a medical-legal partnership (MLP) in an adult blood and marrow (BMT) transplant setting. This will be a 2-arm randomized, controlled clinical trial, in which the intervention group of patients will participate in a BMT Legal Clinic and the control group is provided standard information regarding legal resources.
Blood or marrow transplant patients (BMT) may experience legal support needs through their
transplant process. Specific examples of medical-legal issues impacting BMT patients include
social security disability benefits, Will/estate issues, employment concerns, and creditor
issues. At the beginning of the transplant process, BMT patient-families are often
overwhelmed by the stress of transplant, and their focus is usually on their care and
treatment needs. Legal planning that may be important to patient-families may not be
considered or deferred.
Presently, the process of referral to legal services is predominantly a reactive process.
Once a patient identifies a legal issue or concern to a BMT social worker, this is often
after the issue escalates to the point where it creates significant stress for the
patient-family. The BMT social workers have prolonged contact with these patients and
frequently spend many hours trying to assist patients to resolve these issues.
Cancer Legal Line (CALL) provides caring and compassionate pro bono legal consultation and
other referral or pro-bono legal services based on income guidelines to Minnesotans affected
by cancer. CALL has provided this support based on Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) social
work referral for the past 5 years. To our knowledge, there have been no medical-legal
partnerships established within hospitals for patients undergoing blood or marrow transplant
with cancer.
It is hypothesized that by establishing an onsite BMT Legal Clinic through a Medical-Legal
Partnership (MLP), that patient-and families can be better served through proactive legal
consultation. The BMT Legal Clinic would serve to connect the CALL staff with the BMT care
team to better serve patients to address patients' concerns, promote well-being, and reduce
stress related to medical-legal issues.
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