The desk — three consultants, one correspondence

Every Walden IRB file that leaves this desk has been read by more than one of us. Cecilia Whitmore, PhD makes the determination and writes the plan; Josephine Hale, DNP, APRN builds the documents the board reads most closely; Lauren Petrakis, MSN, RN drafts the site letters, files the application, and carries every reply that follows. These are the people who hold the pen when the board writes back.

In a line — the desk is three consultants at master's level and above, each responsible for one part of the Walden IRB process, reading every file as a team: the determination and plan first, then every document, then the submission and the correspondence until the approval letter. None of us conducts your research, and none of us decides for the board.

Who holds the pen

the desk, by name — what each of us carries, and how each of us reads

The rosterthree consultants, one file at a time re: who does what

Cecilia Whitmore, PhD

Lead IRB consultant — the determination, the review path, the plan

Cecilia reads every file first and makes the call that shapes everything after it: whether the project reads as human-subjects research or as quality improvement, which review path it belongs on, and what this particular board will ask of this particular file. She writes the plan — every enclosure named, in order — and, when the study sits inside the building the candidate works in, the dual-role plan that says who recruits, who consents, who opens identifiable data, and where the candidate's authority stops.

Her doctorate is in research methodology, and she spent the years before the desk on the other side of the table, reading applications for an academic review committee. She has read more Walden revision letters than anyone here, keeps a running index of what the board has asked for and how it phrased it, and still reads every letter that comes in. Her standing answer to "will the board approve it?" is that the board decides; her standing answer to "what will the board ask?" is usually right.

Josephine Hale, DNP, APRN

Consent documents, instruments, recruitment materials, data security plans

Josephine builds the documents the board reads most closely. The consent document, element by element, in language a participant can actually follow; the recruitment materials, each one verbatim and matched to the consent; the instruments and interview guides aligned to the aims in the signed proposal; and the data security plan that names the device, the encryption, the access list, the retention period and the destruction date. She is the reason the file agrees with itself.

She came through a DNP project of her own — a practice-change project at the hospital where she worked, with all the dual-role questions that implies — and she remembers exactly which sentence the board sent back and why. She still practices part of the week as a nurse practitioner, which is why the consent forms she writes sound like a clinician talking to a patient and not like a form.

Lauren Petrakis, MSN, RN

Site letters, submissions, and the correspondence with the board

Lauren handles the part of the process that runs on other people's schedules. She drafts the letters of cooperation on the partner site's letterhead for the signature of someone with authority to grant access — and, when a site is willing but nobody there knows what the letter must say, she is the one who writes the page and walks it through. She assembles the final version-matched file, files the application, and then carries every reply that follows: the point-by-point revision response, the amendments, the continuing review.

Before the desk she coordinated research for a multi-site nursing study, which means she has chased signatures across three health systems at once and knows which director actually has the authority and which one only thinks so. Candidates who have been returned once tend to ask for her by name; she answers the board the way it likes to be answered — whole, numbered, and in its own terms.

How a file moves across the desk

three hands, one file — and the two readings before it goes

The file is handed along the desk in the same order every time, and it never leaves with one signature on it. The drawing below is the route.

Exhibit Cthe route across the desk attached to: every engagement

The route across the desk: Cecilia's reading comes first and shapes the rest; Josephine's documents are built to the plan; Lauren closes the file, files it, and answers the board. The gold eyelet is the second reading — the whole desk reads the finished file against the signed proposal before it leaves. When the board replies, the letter comes to the desk, and the response goes back from it.

What the desk will not do

four lines we hold on every file, written down so you can hold us to them

The deskstanding commitments re: where we stop

We do not conduct your research. The study, the data and the findings are yours; we build the file that asks permission for them and the correspondence that follows. We will never collect data, analyze it, or author a finding.
We do not decide for the board, and we do not predict it. We will tell you our honest reading of how the board will read the file. We will not tell you what it will decide or how long it will take, because we do not know and neither does anyone outside the board.
We do not substitute our reading for Walden's current handbook or IRB portal. Where the handbook fixes a step, a form or a category, the handbook governs; where it has changed since we last read it, we read it again.
We do not overstate your file. When the honest answer after the free application review is "file it as it stands," that is the answer you get, in writing — and the honest answer from the own-workplace reading on the homepage is sometimes "you do not need us."

— Cecilia, Josephine, Lauren

The full process the three of us carry is set out on How it works; the letters candidates have sent back afterward are on Letters received. Write to the desk — the first review is free.