One nurse. Three newsletters.
Meet Nani
Nani spent twenty six years as a nurse, twenty of them as a clinical research coordinator. Root to Rx follows her whole career, from her first day at a research site to the letters she writes from Hawaii. Along the way, she shows you how clinical research actually works.
01
Starting out
The Open Site File
Nani took a job she barely understood: clinical research coordinator. The Open Site File follows her first years at a research site, from consent forms and study visits to data queries and the rules behind every one of them.
It's for anyone who works in clinical research or wants to break in. Once a week, by email when you opt in.
Read The Open Site File02
In the room
The Root Room and Plain Talk
A few years in, Nani is the one friends and family call when a health claim scares them. Each Plain Talk opens in The Root Room, where you watch a real health claim work on someone. Then Plain Talk takes it apart in plain language: what the claim says, what the evidence shows, and the questions worth asking.
Free every Wednesday. This fall's series, Small Doses, takes on twelve viral health claims, one a week.
03
Handing it on
The Roots
Now retired home to Hawaii, Nani answers letters from the nurses, coordinators and pharmacists who get asked the hard questions. Is the vaccine schedule too much? Wasn't it rushed? Who's actually checking the data?
Every Sunday she answers one, on LinkedIn and Substack. Her story starts in the prologue, The Luau.
What she'd hand you
Free tools you can use today
The Field Guide
Five printable conversation cards for talking with someone you love about a health claim.
The Skeptic's Toolkit
The questions to run any health claim through before you believe it, share it or buy it.
Clinical trial registries
Where to find the trials that are actually running, in the US and around the world.
Free patient logs
Keep track of your medications and supplements, medical history and symptoms, ready for your next appointment.
Who's behind her
A note on Nani
Nani is a fictional character, loosely modeled on a family friend. She's written by Justin Yamashita, MSc, who has spent more than a decade in clinical research: at the bench, coordinating studies, monitoring sites and managing trials. Every claim in her stories is sourced, and the sources are listed in each issue. AI helps organize and draft; Justin edits every line.
Follow her whole story
Subscribe free for Plain Talk every Wednesday. To add The Open Site File, turn it on in your preferences after you subscribe.