Recruitment

I am interested in joining the ranks of CRC's. I currently work at the bedside in ICU, but have research experience (animal research). I have a basic question regarding clinical research: How do you go about recruiting patients/participants/subjects? Having spoken with some CRCs, being able to meet that recruitment goal is key to both guaranteeing your paycheck and of cource the success of the study. In my previous research career, we just ordered a batch of mice! (granted, they were expensive, but they were almost always guaranteed available).

I know much depends if it is inpatient/outpatient. I have seen listings for open clinical trials in newspapers, webpages, etc. Are many referred by physicians that are aware of trials?

Since an important part of a CRC's job is recruitment, can anybody tell me more about the process? Where do you find patients? From my, ahem, research into the world of clinical research this concept is foreign to me.

Thanks!