Hello, I recently accepted a job offer as a Clinical Research Coordinator at a children's hospital for Metabolic diseases (managing/overseeing several clinical trials from start to close out), and I am about to start next week. However, this week, I received another job offer from another, larger, children's hospital as a Research Associate III (overseeing II and I, developing a research consortia and multi-site patient registry for transitioning care) for the hospital's new program to help children transition care. Originally, the research associate III job offer out of the two was my ideal, because it aligns a lot with my past work (navigating healthcare systems), goals to be more involved in healthcare delivery, and story/theme, but I honestly thought I was rejected and had not heard back in so long, that I accepted the clinical research job. Even though metabolics is not my strong suit nor do I have a lot of experience in this, I figured it would be a good opportunity to learn something completely new, and be able to interact with patients.
This is a problem I feel really thankful to have, but I was still debating which job to take, especially with some of my end goals being medical school and an MPH down the line. At this point, I'm quite content with my clinical experiences, and this decision is more for future career aspirations of doing primary care pediatrics and being involved in developing health programs (though I understand things change over time and open to that too!). I'm also not sure how schools would look at the two jobs as well. And I think the biggest concern, is if I were to go toward the new opportunity, is not only is that not a good thing to put on a employer and I'm not sure how my integrity would feel, but also how the children's hospital would perceive that if say I'd be interested in residency, etc.
Thus, given the two choices, I was wondering what you guys think would be a good choice to make! Clinical research job -- honoring my commitment, not originally my general field interest but a new learning opportunity in clinical trials and metabolism, seeing patients. Research Associate III -- involved in developing a new health delivery program, more aligned with my story, public health experience (since I have very little public health experience for wanting an MPH), automatically hired at managing RA role, and more renown hospital and pioneer PIs in the field. Thank you so much for your time!
