Anyone a clinical trials coordinator?

[googlenut]

Can you tell me what it's like?

[googlenut]

Bumping

[googlenut]

Bumping

[Fattyfattyyumyum]

I'm not a clinical trials coordinator but I have worked in clinical research. What kind of position is it? It could be based in a big pharma, a contract research organisation (where they run trials on behalf of clients), NHS etc. without a bit more info it's hard to say...

[googlenut]

Would be within a university/NHS setting organising trials for clinicians

[jerseygal78]

This is my area. Would you be doing commercial or academic trials? What setting (primary care, acute, mh) would your trial be recruiting from? What size team of "data collectors" / researchers would you have? How engaged are the clinians you would be working with? Apologies for all the questions but the answers make a difference. Happy to answer more, feel free to pm me. Hard work but I love it

[googlenut]

Hi jersey what do you love about it? Hard to answer the questions but I would be one of a central team of coordinators managing several trials at once - so could be a mixture of all the things you mention.

[jerseygal78]

Firstly the trials are generally really interesting & its the only way to provide evidence to improve services & treatment for patients. Anecdotally patients do better in trials & find the altruistic nature of it rewarding. Day to day managing multiple trials can be tricky, but it depends how supportive or demanding the individual PI's are. It fits in well with my home life - I have two small dc & can work pretty flexibly. Keeping your staff who are out their recruiting supported & motivated is key. Commercial studies are MUCH more demanding in terms of timelines for set up & recruiting to target. Often they will bring recruitment deadlines earlier if they reach target globally earlier than expected (global competitive recruitment) yet if you haven't hit your target by the earlier close date your site will be classed as failed (& so harder to gain repeat business). Some healthcare areas are easier than others. The increasing use of Any Qualified Providers to deliver NHS services can make things trickier in some cases. Academic studies tend to be underfunded on staff which means they rely more on NIHR delivery staff to support them & they will also be supporting a range of studies & their priorities may differ to yours. Are these NIHR studies? Not sure if that helps at all?

[googlenut]

They would probably all be NIHR studies. I'm looking at moving from academic research to this area (still on an academic payscale) as it is a permanent post and want some work life balance.
Main issues are that I worry about losing autonomy and ownership of research.

[jerseygal78]

Its definitely management rather than academic. You'd probably need to be pretty proactive to keep your hand in the academic side, paper publishing etc if you wanted this. Its still pretty full on though. I'd suggest talking to others in the team to see what their views are within your department. Permanent post is pretty tempting I imagine though! I hope you manage to find a solution that works for you

[googlenut]

Does all the paperwork get boring or is there such a variety that its ok?

[papalazaru]

I used to work in a similar field before kids, which was 10 years ago now. If I wanted to get back into it where would I start? My last post was in evidence based medicine/systematic reviews etc. Thanks!