Clinical research

[Dr. Josh]

How do you go about getting clinical research when most of these positions ask you to list all your publications before they give you such a position? Someone has to give you the opportunity or how do you ever get it. frustrating...

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[armybound]

I can only speak of my personal experience, but it's weird.

A friend of mine's dad is the chair of his department at the hospital (vascular surgery). He was looking for a research assistant. His high-school aged son had been doing the work for him. It's basically just data entry.

I applied for the job as a beginning graduate student and was told I didn't meet the criteria for the job They wanted someone with a master's degree already. Yet his high school son had been doing the job before.

So... good luck.

 

[Dr. Josh]

I can only speak of my personal experience, but it's weird.

A friend of mine's dad is the chair of his department at the hospital (vascular surgery). He was looking for a research assistant. His high-school aged son had been doing the work for him. It's basically just data entry.

I applied for the job as a beginning graduate student and was told I didn't meet the criteria for the job They wanted someone with a master's degree already. Yet his high school son had been doing the job before.

So... good luck.

thanks, but I thought your story was going to have a positive outcome. So did you ever get any clinical research?

 

[armybound]

thanks, but I thought your story was going to have a positive outcome. So did you ever get any clinical research?

nope, I got a job elsewhere. these guys were also looking for full-time employees, and it's hard to work 40 hours and go to grad school full time and work another job part time.

I'm good, but I'm not that good..

 

[UCDavisdude]

i got lucky.

 

[degoo_]

collaborating out from my original lab

 

[DropkickMurphy]

How do you go about getting clinical research when most of these positions ask you to list all your publications before they give you such a position? Someone has to give you the opportunity or how do you ever get it. frustrating...

Normally you start out in bench research and list your publications from that......but then again persistance, ****loads of clinical experience, a few good connections and force of will has opened a lot of doors in my case. My publications and pending publications have just acted as application padding for anything I've pursued thus far.

 

[DrVanNostran]

Normally you start out in bench research and list your publications from that......but then again persistance, ****loads of clinical experience, a few good connections and force of will has opened a lot of doors in my case. My publications and pending publications have just acted as application padding for anything I've pursued thus far.

How does one find paid research? During this next year, I would like a paid position for once

 

[DropkickMurphy]

How does one find paid research? During this next year, I would like a paid position for once

I've never tried for paid research positions, mainly because I have a full time job that it pays better than a research job. I do believe that to get a paid clinical research position it may well require either years of productive and proven research or a degree.

 

[Davjc2009]

REUs(Research Experience for Undergraduates) pay for a summer's worth of work... but they're generally (at least not in my experience) not clinical research

 

[Bito42]

Email a bunch of people doing clinical research and say you're willing to work with them for free. someone will respond! (i'm in med school and did this. it's totally fine). also, take time off after college and get fully immersed in clinical research!

 

[bwonger06]

contact a hospital and ask for a research cordinator. most hospitals will have one and explain your situation.

 

[tangledupinblue]

look for a job as a clinical research coordinator. it is working in pharmaceutical trials but it can lead to other opportunities. the doc i work for ended up giving me my own project and i got to work on some investigator initiated projects (not pharmaceutical related). although there is a lot of paper work involved in the job you'll learn a lot about clinical medicine and what it takes to get a new drug approved or even an old one approved for a different indication. and most important you'll get quality patient interaction . . . taking vitals, taking histories, assisting in blood draws and other stuff depending on the field and type of trial.

 

[epigastric]

look for a job as a clinical research coordinator. it is working in pharmaceutical trials but it can lead to other opportunities. the doc i work for ended up giving me my own project and i got to work on some investigator initiated projects (not pharmaceutical related). although there is a lot of paper work involved in the job you'll learn a lot about clinical medicine and what it takes to get a new drug approved or even an old one approved for a different indication. and most important you'll get quality patient interaction . . . taking vitals, taking histories, assisting in blood draws and other stuff depending on the field and type of trial.

FYI, a clinical research coordinator is not limited to working in pharmaceutical trials. In the NYC area, it's a catch-all term for someone who does any sort of clinical research at the sub-PhD level at a hospital, from data entry only (yes, despite the name), to taking vitals and blood from patients 40 hours/week.

And the person that mentioned looking for a research coordinator for the hospital is correct, but if it's a large urban hospital, good luck with that. You need to find out 1) who's the research director for a department or 2) the name of the PI who's working on something you'd like to be involved in. Both of these can generally be found by poking around the departmental websites of the hospital you're interested in. Not every department has a research director; it generally means that the doctors/surgeons have farmed out the paperwork and coordinators to that person, if they exist. If you can find one or both, email your resume and discuss how interested you are in their specific project (this is key) and explain that you'd like to work there. Do this for lots of projects.

It took me a month of daily emails and interviews to find a full-time paid clinical research job, but I had the privilege of turning down plenty of data entry sludge and mouse-babysitting jobs for something really useful to me at the end of it. Be prepared to stretch your budget while you wait. And since most full-time jobs open up in May/June/July, you should really start looking around in earnest by April: it takes time to get all your hospital permissions, computer stuff, etc, and they like to get that done soon.

 

[ADeadLois]

It's very, very difficult to get a clinical research position as a pre-med. Possible, yes, but it usually requires really good connections and/or lots of bench or scut work experience.

Hospitals that do clinical research trials typically don't have the time, money or energy to hire someone without a degree. Hospitals put a ton of money into clinical research studies, and putting someone without much medical experience into an important position within the study is simply too risky.