Any clinical research nurses out there?

Specialties Research

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Hi all! This is my first post...just registered today! I found this BB to be very good for nurses to communicate! I was wondering tho, are there any clinical research nurses out there? None of the posts under "research nursing" really applied. I would like to see somebody in the same field respond.

I am a Certified Clinical Research Coordinator at a University and do all types of studies.

When I come on to this site I see many people posting wanting to know how you get into research. I want to try and answer this.....at least what I have found to be true. I speak as someone who works as a Clinical Research Coordinator. And where I work they also refer to us a Research Nurses. Though it is my understanding that a Research Nurse is generally a PhD prepared Nurse who performs research....but I am off on a tangent.

First, there is not really a national standard that dictates a certain type of credential in order to work as a Research coordinator. I have been to Coordinator training as well as Investigator Meetings to kick off a study and the group is diverse. While many are nurses (LVN, RN) there are MA's, and I have heard that there are coordinators who do not have a medical background at all.

As far as how do you get into research.....you just have to look. Many places that advertise for research coordinators are willing to train. I personally think that a medical background is most helpful in getting a job since a large amount of your work is screening subjects and getting a detailed medical/medication history, and in many studies certain meds or conditions will exclude a patient from participating. Also, it is a plus to be able to read/interpret labs and other diagnostics since you want to be able to flag important ones for the MD's immediate attention. Here in San Antonio medical research is HUGE, so there are tons of jobs, hospital, doctors offices, and we have two different companies that do Phase 1-4 where patients may stay a weekend to 30 days in the facility.

I am getting a little long....sorry. I want to end by saying that working in research and coordinating studies can be fun, but can also be tedious. The paperwork/record keeping is demanding. You have to be organized and detail oriented...a tendency towards obssesive complusive behavior is a plus!!

Never forget.....He who has the most paperwork wins!!!!

Specializes in Critical Care, Cardiothoracics, VADs.

Hello everyone! Let me tell you about me -

I am an Australian CCRN who worked in cardiothoracic ICU for around 7 years. My unit was cardiothoracics/transplant/trauma. The unit participated in the pilot trial of a medical device and I got to know the medical director of the sponsor company. They offered me a position as a clinical educator and I moved across "to the dark side" as we say! The attraction was a new challenge, and a lot more money initially!

In the past 3 years at the company, I have moved from the only clinical educator, to the clinical engineering manager in charge of four other educators I hired (all nurses I previously worked with), to now being the director of medical affairs.

I have had the opportunity to see our device evolve as I went from first being a nurse looking after the first human implant, to now having seen 70 devices implanted worldwide. I have been able to travel, learn, learn and learn. I have been able to meet key opinion leaders in my field of interest and get a crash course in corporate life and business practices. I have been able to work for a year in one of our trial sites in the US.

In the process, I have gained a huge respect for study coordinators, and the amount of detailed and tedious work they have to do in order to carry produce meaningful data. I have also been able to gain an understanding of how the sponsor company works, and what causes the things that frustrate the clinical research staff at hospitals!

I do really miss the bedside clinical environment, and may move back to it shortly. I would like to stay at my company long enough to see our device approved for use (next couple of months) as that would complete the cycle I have been able to participate in.

Kudos to all the research nurses and study coordinators!

Specializes in Critical Care, Cardiothoracics, VADs.

Yes, it would definitely be worth a try. There are some short courses which may look good on your resume too. You could also try hospitals for research assistant positions which could get your foot in the door for some experience.

From the perspective of someone who works for a sponsor company, good CRAs are hard to find (and keep) - it's a lot of travel usually and a stressful, concentrated job.

Good luck!

Hi,

I began in research in 1993 as a clinical research coordinator at a large university in their neurosurgical dept. working with a pharmaceutical co. in various neuro studies for 5 years. I had around 7 or 8 sites all over the U.S. and one in Canada that I was responsible for in insuring they were performing the studies correctly. I reviewed the crf's and ae's and submitted queries to sites and worked closely with the p.i., etc. I really enjoyed it. Then I moved out of state and while gone this research group closed. When I returned, due to my husbands job, I then worked at a local cro as a senior clinical data coordinator working on cancer studies mainly, but also other types. I worked there 2 years and left because I didn't like the corporate mentality there. I also didn't enjoy juggling data on the computer and not having much contact with anyone involved with the studies. It was a dog eat dog environment! All they were interested in was money and people stepped all over each other to get a task done. I then worked as a study coordinator for a private psychiatric office and saw patients, drew bloods, ekg's, etc. I am now in the process of researching to start a business of my own, which I hope to do in the next year or so. I want to say the I got all of these research jobs because of the people I knew. Back in 1993 here in this town, clinical research was new and if you were a nurse they hired and trained you. I was trained in all aspects of research and in using a computer. Most of us nurses there did not even know how to turn a computer on let alone use it in our work, but the university trained us. Now you are required to be certified and have experience in research. My advice would be to seek out places where you can be certified as a ccrn before applying for research jobs.

Hi,

Although currently doing something else, I worked as a clinical studies coordinator for more than ten years, beginning at UCLA med cntr. Out-pt and CRC positions, love research, good at it, but it's generally too stressful for me now. Hope you're having a good time with it though!

Hi, I'm not sure what I'm doing here -- haven't yet figured out if when I reply, I'm replying to the specific post I have in mind. So, decided to use the quote button.

I think it's terrific that you have traveled up to the position where more nurse's should be--and best wishes for future. Companies are slowly learning how valuable we are to their success. I have over ten years experience as a research nurse/clinical studies coord., and am now interested in knowing more about in-house review/QA positions. Can you help me with my research on this? Thanks

Hello everyone! Let me tell you about me -

I am an Australian CCRN who worked in cardiothoracic ICU for around 7 years. My unit was cardiothoracics/transplant/trauma. The unit participated in the pilot trial of a medical device and I got to know the medical director of the sponsor company. They offered me a position as a clinical educator and I moved across "to the dark side" as we say! The attraction was a new challenge, and a lot more money initially!

In the past 3 years at the company, I have moved from the only clinical educator, to the clinical engineering manager in charge of four other educators I hired (all nurses I previously worked with), to now being the director of medical affairs.

I have had the opportunity to see our device evolve as I went from first being a nurse looking after the first human implant, to now having seen 70 devices implanted worldwide. I have been able to travel, learn, learn and learn. I have been able to meet key opinion leaders in my field of interest and get a crash course in corporate life and business practices. I have been able to work for a year in one of our trial sites in the US.

In the process, I have gained a huge respect for study coordinators, and the amount of detailed and tedious work they have to do in order to carry produce meaningful data. I have also been able to gain an understanding of how the sponsor company works, and what causes the things that frustrate the clinical research staff at hospitals!

I do really miss the bedside clinical environment, and may move back to it shortly. I would like to stay at my company long enough to see our device approved for use (next couple of months) as that would complete the cycle I have been able to participate in.

Kudos to all the research nurses and study coordinators!

I worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator at a large University here in town for 5 years. It was neurologial studies. I've since moved on to other things, but I went for an interview for a ccr position at the same university last Friday for oncology studies and while interviewing I saw how everyone I spoke to or observed in the office were so s-t-r-e-s-s-e-d out! I've decided not to accept that position and to accept another one that doesn't seem to be as stressing. I love working in research but the working conditions do seem to have gotten worse, at least here.

I have an interview with an independent clinical research company and was wondering what types of questions do I need to ask. I have med surg exp only and have no exp in research but want to get into research. Thanks.

Specializes in General Nursing.

hi, how can i get to u?am a student Nurse, about to write our research.i need ur help, plz reply how can i get to u?

Hi

I work in research as a compliance nurse, monitoring research protocols

I am in Houston, the VA in fact.

I am a member of the association of clinical research nurses. A handful of people have been trying to keep this organization a float, so far its still going.

The organization has been a struggle to get people on board and we would like to develop this as a speciality.

we are redoing our mission statement and purpose and if you are interested let me hear from you.

Right now we are only in the Houston area in, the Texas medical center. We have a membership of about 60. so we are trying to generate more interest and would love to have your support, please jump aboard with ideas and we need workers to get this organization to go national and get reconized as a speciality.

Love to hear from you!

I've applied for a research coordinator job and pretty much have it in the bag. I'm worried about salary/ I did a salary search and with a Master's degree and 3 certifications (in the specialty I'll be researching) the salary range was $62,700 to 70,800.

Does this sound reasonable? Thius is in the Mid west. Would any of you be willing to give me a range of what you think an acceptable wage would be???? THANKS!!!:uhoh3:

Specializes in NICU, DC planning, Neurosurgery, Inf Dis.

Hope you're still out there..that was a pretty old post...I am applying for a CRC position in central Tx. I anticipate I will work with numerous docs on various research projects. I'm excited and a little scared...some of these posts are talking about lots of stress...I'm pretty compulsive and enjoy tedious things, but I don't care much for stress!!!! any advice in this arena???

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