Clinical research coordinator, research or clinical

[saltykiosk]

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Hi! I have been working as clinical trial CRC for my gap year, around 1.5k hours. initially I wanted to build my research hours as I already had a lot of clinical hours. Although I spend a lot of time on the research side, working with data/paperwork’s and coordinating things with investigators/sponsers. I also do clinical duties as well like vitals, blood draw, ecg, medical history, etc.
Without this role I have 2.5k clinical and 1k research (wet and dry lab) hours. I like clinical research the most and want to pursue it long term and want to imply that interest in my app.

What would it be more beneficial to count it as!

 

[PickaGodnPray]

Unless I am missing something, this is obviously clinical research and not basic science. It should be recorded as such in the application.

 

[polymerization]

Generally, neither. CRCs are administrative roles, like unit secretaries at the hospital.

You can choose to write it up in your application however you want (and you absolutely should be specific given your duties), but you will be up against the NIH definition, which states:

"A Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) manages and conducts the day-to-day activities of a clinical trial. The Principal Investigator (PI) determines the CRC’s specific responsibilities and works closely with the CRC. In general, the CRC ensures the clinical study maintains accordance with the protocol, applicable regulations, and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) and Institutional Review Board (IRB) requirements. Beyond administrative duties, responsibilities of a CRC may include acting as a liaison for the clinical site, ensuring staff are properly trained per the protocol, recruiting and/or registering participants, maintaining study guidelines, and collecting and/or reviewing the data or review before it is entered into a study database."

 

[saltykiosk]

Unless I am missing something, this is obviously clinical research and not basic science. It should be recorded as such in the application.

I meant for experience type selection, between paid clinical or research.

Generally, neither. CRCs are administrative roles, like unit secretaries at the hospital.

You can choose to write it up in your application however you want (and you absolutely should be specific given your duties), but you will be up against the NIH definition, which states:

"A Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) manages and conducts the day-to-day activities of a clinical trial. The Principal Investigator (PI) determines the CRC’s specific responsibilities and works closely with the CRC. In general, the CRC ensures the clinical study maintains accordance with the protocol, applicable regulations, and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) and Institutional Review Board (IRB) requirements. Beyond administrative duties, responsibilities of a CRC may include acting as a liaison for the clinical site, ensuring staff are properly trained per the protocol, recruiting and/or registering participants, maintaining study guidelines, and collecting and/or reviewing the data or review before it is entered into a study database."

I still have to choose between the experience types. In my essay I clarified that I spend half my time with patients doing clinical duties and the other half working with data and administrative roles.

As a follow up, does the administrative experience has any worth for application purposes?

 

[deleted1191256]

I meant for experience type selection, between paid clinical or research.

I still have to choose between the experience types. In my essay I clarified that I spend half my time with patients doing clinical duties and the other half working with data and administrative roles.

As a follow up, does the administrative experience has any worth for application purposes?

I think it depends on the nature of your clinical work. When talking to patients about were you a part of their care in any way or were you only speaking to them only to collect data for the study.

Research: had some involvement in the research process outside of administrative tasks. I’ve seen people get away with putting research assistant/tech roles here like collecting data or basic analysis. This could look like you collecting vitals for you or you preforming some statistics. If you were constantly explaining parts of the research to patients and walking them through everything, this could count.

Clinical: you treat or evaluate the patients. Did you take care of them in any way or helped them be taken care of? It sounds to me you did some general clinical things like vitals and blood draws.

I don’t see why you can’t make two activity sections since they feel very distinct between “paid clinical” and “research”.

I’ve been offered CRC positions in the past and I’ve never been told the role involved more than scheduling patients or other admin stuff.

I wouldn’t consider regular CRC direct research but what you’re doing sounds different. I think depends on if you feel like they’re distinct enough.

Hi! I have been working as clinical trial CRC for my gap year, around 1.5k hours. initially I wanted to build my research hours as I already had a lot of clinical hours. Although I spend a lot of time on the research side, working with data/paperwork’s and coordinating things with investigators/sponsers. I also do clinical duties as well like vitals, blood draw, ecg, medical history, etc.
Without this role I have 2.5k clinical and 1k research (wet and dry lab) hours. I like clinical research the most and want to pursue it long term and want to imply that interest in my app.

What would it be more beneficial to count it as!

I think you can put this under research or clinical or both. If you feel like you roles were distinct enough where you’d do a lot of analysis in one and a lot of MA related work as well, you can make two sections. Though honestly, given how limited you are I’d lean towards picking the role that most aligns with your duties while explaining the dual nature of the role.

Did you spend most of your time analyzing and collecting data? put it under research.

Did you do more MA related tasks like this outside of clinical research purposes? paid clinical.

I would lean towards labeling it as clinical research assistant under research because CRCs I am familiar with never deal with data collection or analysis. I was personally offered a CRC role recently and it was all admin tasks.

I meant for experience type selection, between paid clinical or research.

I still have to choose between the experience types. In my essay I clarified that I spend half my time with patients doing clinical duties and the other half working with data and administrative roles.

You did great by making the distinction!

P.S. I’m NOT an admin, just an older premed.

 

[saltykiosk]

@Anthodite
We are a small site so I have to do a lot of duties that CRCs usually don't. I actually had far more direct clinical involvement than my previous clinical jobs. A lot of our patients are elderly so they're not the most knowledgeable about their health and I do extensive medical background and often find out the patient has a medical condition they have been neglecting so I coordinate with doctors to take care of them.

Honestly it's definetly more clinical than research so I'm going to divide my hours into 2 enteries so I could explain both my clinical interactions and also my administrative/data collection duties.

Thank you!