Cancer and clinical trials, explained plainly
About Protocol & People
Protocol & People™ is a multiplatform cancer and clinical trial literacy initiative. It explains cancer and clinical trials in plain language for patients, families and the people who care for them, across question cards, books, an appointment planner, a newsletter, an animated series and live talks.
Everything Protocol & People publishes starts from the basics and defines its terms. The question cards average a US grade 4.8 reading level, so they can be read by anyone, whatever their medical background.
Founders
Oyepeju Abioye-Akintola, MD, MSc, is a co-founder of Protocol & People. She is an internal medicine physician training toward thoracic medical oncology and a 2026-2027 Health Equity Fellow with Health Affairs, through its Health Equity Fellowship for Trainees (HEFT). Her research measures the reading level of oncology clinical trial consent documents. She is a co-author of Cards on the Table.
Ayooluwa Akintola, PhD, is a co-founder of Protocol & People. He holds a PhD in process systems engineering, the discipline of modeling and optimizing complex systems, and is a senior associate in quantitative analytics, with more than a decade of experience across engineering and analytics. He brings expertise in data and operations to the team.
What Protocol & People offers
- Free to everyone: the Cards on the Table question cards, seven short books, the Taking Notes appointment planner, three games, the newsletter and the animated series.
- For organizations: printed decks, planners and books; a version of the site with an organization's own contacts; new languages; and talks and workshops.
Cards on the Table
Over 150 questions, one to a card, each with a plain answer. The cards are organized by when people need them, from the first days after a diagnosis to the offer of a clinical trial, and are designed to be read at home and brought to the next appointment.
They are free at protocolandpeople.org in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Yorùbá and Vietnamese. Review of each translation by clinicians who speak the language is the next stage of the work.
Co-authors: Oyepeju Abioye-Akintola, MD, MSc; Meghna Mathews, MD. Published by Protocol & People LLC.
The newsletter
The newsletter explains cancer and clinical trials in more depth than the cards: what a diagnosis and its stage mean, how treatments work, and how clinical trials are designed, run and reported.
The series
An animated series covers the same ground in short videos, with subtitles and dubbed audio in other languages.
Talks and workshops
Protocol & People gives talks and runs workshops on clinical trials and cancer care for patient groups, community organizations, research staff and clinic teams.
Medical information
Everything on this site is educational and is not medical advice. It does not replace a conversation with a patient's own care team, and every card directs the reader back to that team.
For organizations, funders and press
For organizations · For funders and partners · Press kit