How to get research publications as a Clinical Research Assistant?

[Ram Kotnana]

A lot of clinical research positions are looking for people only for the adminstrative side of research, not technical. I have looked on sites like indeed and LinkedIn but all the clinical positions are adminstrative. I am also looking for jobs as a research technologist, but a CRA jobs will allow me to get more clinical experience obviously.

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[Goro]

A lot of clinical research positions are looking for people only for the adminstrative side of research, not technical. I have looked on sites like indeed and LinkedIn but all the clinical positions are adminstrative. I am also looking for jobs as a research technologist, but a CRA jobs will allow me to get more clinical experience obviously.

You have to actually do the work that leads to the generation of data; analyze and interpret the data, and make a contribution tot he study that merits your name being on the publication.

Pubs by pre-meds are rare. Focus instead on building a good overall app.

 

[FluffyCat1212]

Echoing what Goro said- I worked for 5 years as a CRA and didn't have any pubs (just a couple posters). I had planned answers to interview questions about why I didn't have a publication only to discover that...nobody cared that I didn't have a pub! If the opportunity arises, it would probably help your app. But otherwise, it's pretty rare and won't hurt you. The experience really is what matters.

 

[Blueprint Med School]

You'll likely have to be more proactive and do things outside your specified role. Talk to the PI or whoever's conducting the research, express that you wanted to try to get published, and they might be willing to give you a more active role or let you write part of the paper.

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

 

[GoSpursGo]

I also agree with @MedSchoolTutors , this is where you need to talk with your PI about your career goals and how you can achieve what you're hoping for out of your experience. If that includes getting included on a publication, then you need to make it known. If you simply wait around for an opportunity to present itself, you're likely not going to get tapped.

 

[SatoruGojo]

It's all about selecting the correct lab. Clinical labs are usually better for publications. Look up all the clinical faculty in your specialty of interest at your institution, and see who published the most in the past few years. If there are only 0-2 undergrads working with them at the moment, that is better for publications.

 

[LizzyM]

Diversity, equity and inclusion are getting quite a bit of attention so you might be able to capitalize on that interest.

Consider a paper describing the patient population your studies recruit from. Take a look at how recruiting is done, the demographics of those who inquire about the study, those who are informed, those who sign the consent, and those who make it through screening to the intervention itself (if applicable). Does each group reflect the characteristics of the underlying population of people with this condition or are there points in the process where the sample becomes non-representative of the underlying population? The entire study of this kind can be done as a look back at existing data.

Beyond age, race, sex, consider education and socioeconomic status (zip code can be a proxy in some locations for economic status).

What other studies have done this exercise in other locations or with other health conditions (literature review)? Where are the points that need an increase in effort to recruit and retain a representative sample of the target population? What might those efforts be?

 

[pazzer2]

I'm an MD and have been working in clinical research for 20+ years on the sponsor side for pharma companies. I have never seen a CRA involved in any of the publications from our studies. We do loads of post-hoc analyses obviously. The people on the administrative side of things rarely are included in publications.

But here is another idea: almost all pharma companies now release their clinical trial datasets to the public for scientific research purposes. You can do some interesting post-hocs. This would require you to understand biostats and know how to program (SAS or R). But this is an opportunity to generate additional data that would likely be publishable.

 

[pazzer2]

Here are a few of the big repositories for clinical trial data

Vivli (Abbvie, AZ, BMS, Biogen)
vivli.org

YODA (J&J, Medtronic)
yoda.yale.edu

GSK Novartis Eisai Bayer Sanofi
clinicalstudydatarequest.com

Pfizer
www.pfizer.com/science/clinical-trials/data-and-results

 

[jhmmd]

A lot of clinical research positions are looking for people only for the adminstrative side of research, not technical. I have looked on sites like indeed and LinkedIn but all the clinical positions are adminstrative. I am also looking for jobs as a research technologist, but a CRA jobs will allow me to get more clinical experience obviously.

Have you tried going through your local university?

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

In a lot of cases, UG and Gap publications come down to luck. I’ve known some professors that add nearly everybody involved to the paper while others only added people with significant contributions