Tag: Clinical Research
Clinical Research Pt. I – Office Space
by daniel on Oct.18, 2009, under Research
I have been doing clinical research for two years now and yet it feels like an eternity. I have learned so much during this time that I have become very confident in not only my level of clinical understanding but also my understanding of medication function and interaction and have gained more than my fair share of the overall savvy required to succeed at this job…
It all started on October 1st, 2007 when I began my first day of work at the hospital. I was shown into my office, a corner office without a window roughly 15ft x 20ft. And nothing,… wait I shouldn’t go that far… it had a computer at least, a modern dell with a 19″ LCD screen. This was placed on a card table which was sitting in the corner of the room and next to that a stack of boxes which I was told contained some office supplies and binders for patients.
From there I was on my own. I was armed with the names of two people with jobs roughly similar to mine and some great advice from one of my future mentors (who also would happen to be my boss).
Upon calling my associates I was given a brief rundown of how difficult, random, tedious and time consuming this position was. I was given some sample binders and folders to show me the data collected. From that point on I was on my own.
At this point it began to sink in. I was going to be experimenting on human beings. The same type of things I was doing in the lab I would now be doing with actual people. You can’t exactly restart a human experiment if something goes wrong, you can’t take a coffee break and re-run your samples, and you must certainly write everything down!!!
Step 1. Review my sample documents.
