For Nancy Garrett-Mead and Patricia Garrett-Peters, staying in touch and supporting each other throughout life as sisters has always been important. In fact, both have had their career paths weave together with transitions from UNC to Duke and working in research. Currently, Nancy and Patricia are both project managers in clinical research.
Nancy focuses her effort to support the GUARDD study within the IGNITE network, which involves genetic testing to understand renal disease disparities across the U.S. Patricia supports the GRACE study, whose trial aim is looking at genomic medicine risk assessment. Both Garrett sisters support Dr. Lori Orlando and team through trials facilitated through the Duke Precision Medicine Program.
As project managers, they are gatekeepers into the day-to-day work that it takes to run a trial. “Our work each week is very dependent on where the trial implementation is at,” says Patricia. “For the GRACE study, I am in the midst of writing up the protocol to fully describe what will happen with participants in the trial, all of whom will be patients in the University of Florida - Jacksonville Health System.”
Nancy, on the other hand, is working with hospital and research staff within the Duke Clinical Group sites that are enrolling patients to the GUARDD study. She provides guidance to study teams in Southeastern North Carolina, New Orleans, and Dallas, and leads a mini-coordinating center for enrolling sites. Their roles take focus and organizational skills to ensure these trials can get off the ground and stay on track.
Both Garrett sisters were previously at UNC Chapel Hill before coming to Duke. While Patricia worked as the project director for a longitudinal development study and was writing grants and managing large projects, Nancy worked in autism research then had a regulatory position in Infectious Disease before she came to the Duke Office of Clinical Research via the Duke Cancer Institute.
Work colleagues to each other each day, but more importantly, sisters who continue to stay in each other’s lives. “We have family dinners once a week with my children or sometimes just the two of us,” says Patricia. Nancy says, “I’ve implemented a 5-10 mile radius rule for my sister, so she can’t move any further than that away from me.” Beyond their family dinners, Nancy is a potter outside of work. She repurposed her garage into a clay studio in 2020 and has an Etsy shop to sell her work, and Patricia is her favorite customer.
The two also have a unique way of implementing their IOU system. “We use fresh farm eggs as a barter if we owe each other money,” says Patricia. “Most recently, I adopted a dog from a family member, and Nancy was chipping in for vet bills, so we just worked it out in eggs.”