is clinical research BORING???????

[windsor4216]

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So I was just wondering if clinical research a) is counted as a clinical experience and b) if it is actually stimulating enough to do for a year.

I just got a job as a clinical research assistant for my year off after undergrad, and I wanted to know if I will want to kick myself in the face for signing up for a year-long position. The upside is it is salaried 🙂

I heard most clinical research is just subject recruitment and paperwork...

Any good experiences out there??

 

[Dannyw]

So I was just wondering if clinical research a) is counted as a clinical experience and b) if it is actually stimulating enough to do for a year.

I just got a job as a clinical research assistant for my year off after undergrad, and I wanted to know if I will want to kick myself in the face for signing up for a year-long position. The upside is it is salaried 🙂

I heard most clinical research is just subject recruitment and paperwork...

I did data analysis, searched for papers and helped edit and write a paper.

 

[YouNeverKnow22]

It depends on what you're doing. What do you mean is clinical research BORING? Research whether bench/clinical is interesting if you are intellectually stimulated by the project, if not then you will hate it. And you are the only person that can answer that question.

 

[glasshalfMD]

I did data analysis, searched for papers and helped edit and write a paper.

Same. aaaand, the paperwork, participant recruitment, keeping the PI in line, etc.

I don't find it boring, though, for the most part. I've had weeks here or there with little to nothing to do, but then I just come on SDN and kill the time. I think a lot depends on the area of research, too.

 

[Suncrusher]

never tried it but it can't possibly be more boring than bench research

Worst 2500 hours of my life

 

[startswithb]

I've done both. The busy work of performing a day long experiment in the lab is less boring for me than the busy work of the paperwork and data collection in clinical research. However, bench research can be more stressful with the myriad things that can go wrong with little notice or explanation. Also, the ability to push out papers seems to be much faster in clinical. Clearer cut results.

 

[cowme]

All research is boring.

/thread

 

[TooMuchResearch]

I've worked both ends of clinical research (study sponsor and hospital study site). Working on the hospital side is much more entertaining. Working for the study sponsor pays much better and allows you, if interested, to climb the corporate ladder.

If you're working with actual patients/subjects, then yes, it is clinical experience. If you're a low level (digital) paper pusher working in a sea of cubicles, attending acronym-filled meetings 3+ hours per day, no, it isn't clinical experience.

I think bench research is fun, too.

 

[noshie]

I 😍 Clinical Research... But probably because I am in an academic setting, I have heard about those sponsor sites and how crazy stressful it is.

 

[FutureDr8429033]

My opinion is that if you're a smart person, unless you're working on something particularly fascinating and you have a PI who is taking a special interest in you/teaching you all kinds of things, you'll be bored to death in 3 months.

But it's a job. Try to have fun and make the best of it. It's tolerable if you work with cool people.

 

[DoctwoB]

Retrospective data analysis FTW. Be an Excel Jockey!!!

Oh wait, thats boring too. Damn.

 

[truthstew]

Also, you might not want the most challenging job if you are planning to work on apps this year.

 

[afugazzi]

I think clinical research can be WAAAY more interesting than bench research if you get to do some of the statistical analysis. It depends on what you like doing. Do you like programming? Or do you like pipetting things for hours on end?

But then again you might not get to do any cool stats stuff. Data entry is one boring mofo. Also subject recruitment is boring. The one plus is if you get to somehow sit in on any of the data collection with the patients. Then you'll get that 'hands-on' experience everyone's raving about.

 

[kami333]

All research is boring.

/thread

^This. Bench, clinical, computational, etc, setting up and conducting the research is mundane, repetitive, and soul-crushingly boring.

But the pure satisfaction and adrenaline/euphoria you feel when you get the perfect graph showing strong correlation or a very low p makes it worth it.

It's just a question of whether you think 5min of euphoria when things work out is worth weeks/months/years of frustration and head banging.

 

[phnerd1105]

I've done clinical research for three years and now even run my own team. I think its much more interesting than bench research. However, all of my research is constantly in a patient care setting, so I get to spend a lot of time working directly with a lot of physicians and patients. I love it! I feel that clinical research gets you more in the medical setting, and if you don't like it, you have to determine whether its because of the work you're doing or the setting that you're in.

 

[LizzyM]

It is hard to say if clinical research counts as clinical. Not all clinical research involves patients. Some of it involves studies of "normal" people who are not patients at all. Some clinical research involves patients but you as a research assistant may never see them. You may talk on the phone, mail them things, receive things in the mail about them, handle specimens that came from their bodies, etc but again you are not having an experience where you are close enough to "smell patients". Furthermore, some experts will make a distinction between research and patient care such that an interaction with a sick research subject solely to collect data for research purposes is not seen as patient care.

On the other hand, if you have had some clinical exposure and you are interested in academic medicine, in clinical reserach, in attending a top 20 research oriented medical school, having had some experience with consent forms, subject recruitment, IRB / FDA paperwork, sponsors, monitors and all the rest is a very good experience particularly if you can say that it has solidified your interest in clinical research as part of your career in medicine.

Is it boring? It can be. Many jobs involve repetitive, mundane tasks that crush your soul. The good news is that you are not in it for the long haul, it is not 80 hours/wk, and there can be moments of fun in almost any work environment. Also, the more you learn of the world of work outside of medicine, the better you can understand people -- the people who will one day be your patients, the parents of your patients or the adult children of your patients. Understanding where people are coming from & their life experiences is always good.

 

[Lokhtar]

I love bench research much more than clinical research, which I find boring. However, it's a personality type difference. It can be fun for the right person, same as bench. Or both types of research can be unfun. In any scientific research in biology, you'll have a lot of repetition and things like that so you have to be intellectually invested. Generally if you only have a vague idea of what's going on and are just a PCR-boy, it's not fun. If you're into the project on an intellectual level and part of the team that's asking the questions, figuring out the why and the how, and really doing some problem solving and getting interested in the subject, it can be very fun - even the same tasks that you'd otherwise find boring.

Case in point: I was doing research where I just did PCR a lot and wanted to kill myself. But a year later, I was part of the design of an experiment where we were trying to find someway to isolate a protein that no one had before and I made a few suggestions to my PI..who thought it was a long shot but worth a try and so I did the SAME TECHNIQUES, but this time I was the one who came up with it and I was REALLY REALLY excited doing it, and couldn't even sleep waiting for the results. I failed miserably of course but it didn't matter -I learned a lot and decided right there I wanted to incorporate research into my future career. Same techniques, same procedures, but one was really fun while the other wasn't. So, a lot of it is context.

I am sure for some people, clinical research is the same way. On the other hand, my friend is an astrophysics grad student and I've hung out with him overnight at the observatory and such and even the boring parts of his research are pretty fun...the bastard 😛.

 

[Seven of Nine]

i ABSOLUTELY LOVE my clinical research gig, which i've had for years. i've had the whole range of experiences: pure and unequivocal patient/clinical experience in several capacities, "collecting data," using these discussions and experiences to realize trends in data that my PIs and bosses wouldn't have otherwise pick up... complemented by being a study coordinator, mind-numbing databasing and excel jockeying. though, on the same token, i love computers, so until i reach a certain critical point, i can take the eye strain from staring at data fields for extended periods of time. luckily, i have various, completely different projects going on at the same time to maintain a balance between engaging a computer and engaging a human being 😛

sorry i'm being so vague... just wanted to chime in there are great clinical research opportunities! i think it comes down to finding a position under the right person in a field that piques your interests.

 

[deleted393595]

So I was just wondering if clinical research a) is counted as a clinical experience and b) if it is actually stimulating enough to do for a year.

I just got a job as a clinical research assistant for my year off after undergrad, and I wanted to know if I will want to kick myself in the face for signing up for a year-long position. The upside is it is salaried 🙂

I heard most clinical research is just subject recruitment and paperwork...

Any good experiences out there??

I've never done clinical research but the project that I worked on last summer in a research program was out of my area of interest. Nevertheless, it was exciting taking it from conceptual design to prototype testing.

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

All research is boring.

/thread

^This. Bench, clinical, computational, etc, setting up and conducting the research is mundane, repetitive, and soul-crushingly boring.

But the pure satisfaction and adrenaline/euphoria you feel when you get the perfect graph showing strong correlation or a very low p makes it worth it.

It's just a question of whether you think 5min of euphoria when things work out is worth weeks/months/years of frustration and head banging.

I'm sorry you guys seem to have had bad experiences with research.

Regarding intellectual stimulation in research, I only have experience with basic science research, not the clinical research side. However, there's not a single day where I feel that I'm not intellectually challenged. That's what I love about research: there's so much thinking involved (unless your involvement in a project is pretty much limited to running experiments for others...then yea, it's not as fun). It's not just memorization/regurgitation of facts...the fun begins when you start designing approaches to answer a question. Sure, the physical act of running Westerns, cell culturing, or any other experimental technique might be boring. But research is so much more than just the physical act of running experiments.

Maybe I'm just a weirdo.

 

[Nicole Kidd]

My opinion is that if you're a smart person, unless you're working on something particularly fascinating and you have a PI who is taking a special interest in you/teaching you all kinds of things, you'll be bored to death in 3 months.

But it's a job. Try to have fun and make the best of it. It's tolerable if you work with cool people.

I wish I had seen this 6 months ago. I thought what I do is going to be intellectual stimulating, turned out that they're only letting me do data entry - a job that any person with GED can do, now I miss basic science research again, at least I'm doing something.