May 20 marks Clinical Trials Day, a global celebration of the professionals whose work brings new treatments to life. While their roles often go unnoticed, these individuals are critical to translating research into real-world care. Abbey Staugaitis, RN, MSN, CCRC plays a key role in this field through her work managing acute care research and supporting clinical trials across emergency and stroke care networks.
Bridging care and research
As a Research Project Manager and Research Nurse, Abbey plays a vital role in two major NIH-funded clinical trial networks active at the University of Minnesota: SIREN, which focuses on emergency medicine, and StrokeNet, which spans the full spectrum of stroke care. These programs use a hub-and-spoke model to streamline research across regions. “We help usher various trials through those networks,” Abbey explains, describing how her team not only runs trials locally but also supports partner sites across Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and even Alaska.
Beyond her work with clinical trial networks, Abbey also founded the Acute Care Research Coordinators group in the Department of Emergency Medicine, a service organization designed to meet the demands of high-acuity, low-enrolling hospital-based clinical trials. These are the kinds of studies triggered by unpredictable, life-threatening events like cardiac arrest, traumatic brain injury, or stroke. “We support trials that can come in at any time, night or day, 24/7,” she says, underscoring the urgency and complexity her team navigates daily.
From ICU nurse to research leader
Abbey’s journey into clinical research began at the bedside. As a registered nurse, she started her career in a pediatric ICU in Long Beach, CA. After moving to Minnesota and encountering a tight job market, a research opportunity caught her eye. “I just happened to see a posting for a position for a research coordinator in a music therapy study for mechanically ventilated patients,” she recalls. The role sought RN applicants, and Abbey saw a chance to apply her ICU experience in a new and interesting context. “It let me use my nursing skills, especially my ICU skills, in a totally new way,” she says.
That experience changed her career path, and Abbey now helps other nurses enter the field. “For our particular type of work, it’s actually more important for someone to have a clinical background,” she says. “I’m happy to train nurses on the research side of things.”
Abbey believes this career path should be more visible to nurses. “This role offers a nice hybrid of clinical bedside experience and a whole new world of clinical trials research,” she says, emphasizing that nursing skills are “quite valuable within clinical trials” across the industry.
Teamwork at the heart of acute care
In acute care trials, teamwork is essential. Abbey describes her team’s role as overlapping Venn diagrams with the clinical team, including physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, all working together to deliver research-driven care. “We act as protocol experts, but we also have to understand the clinical workflow. We’re part of the care team.”
Her team’s structure is built for resilience. Cross-training is a foundational element. “Any one of us could enroll in anybody else’s study,” she says. This approach enables instant readiness across multiple hospitals and trials. “That’s how we operate and expand our team. It’s how we keep things going, year after year.”
Making a real world impact
The challenges in acute care trials are significant. Enrollment often needs to happen fast, sometimes within 20 minutes, often in high-stress, life-or-death situations. Watching her team meet those challenges is Abbey’s greatest reward.
“To watch someone safely and correctly randomize a patient in a time-critical study, it’s just this moment of shock and pride,” she says. “And then you just hope the intervention helps that patient.”
Seeing the broader impact is also deeply rewarding. “When new guidelines come out and new practice changes happen from studies we participated in, that’s the full circle moment,” she says.
A message for Clinical Trials Day
For Abbey, Clinical Trials Day is a chance to increase awareness and appreciation, not just among professionals, but also among hospital staff and the public.
She wants people to see clinical trials not as a separate academic effort but as a vital part of care. “Clinical trials as health care is really important. It’s part of health care,” she says. That includes patients asking their providers about trials and providers being informed enough to refer patients. “It’s an important part of clinical care.”
In the fast-paced world of acute care, where research teams operate around the clock, urgency often overshadows visibility. “We’re doing what I think is pretty cool stuff, but we're this tiny team,” Abbey says. “We’re working 24/7 on all these different things.” That’s why moments of recognition, like Clinical Trials Day, can carry extra weight. “I’m glad that we can get our story out.”
Honoring the people behind the breakthroughs
The work of Abbey Staugaitis and her team reminds us that clinical research professionals are the people behind the breakthroughs. They bring scientific rigor and human compassion to the front lines of care, transforming emergency moments into opportunities for discovery and healing.
This May 20, we celebrate them, and all clinical research professionals, who help turn possibility into progress—one trial at a time.
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