Clinical research stands at the forefront of medical advancement, offering promising treatments and therapies to combat diseases and improve human health. Despite its noble objectives, the field faces numerous challenges to reduce the complexity of clinical trials notably due to an increasing demand for more data from regulatory and reimbursement stakeholders.

If “recruiting and screening patients who try new treatments and monitoring and reporting on patient progress” sounds like a reasonable, if skimpy, definition of the duties of a clinical research coordinator (CRC) at a clinical trial site, imagine the surprise of a newly minted CRC who finds themself tasked with exploring a shuttered hospital in search of old research records, or visiting the local jail in hopes of finding participants who have gone missing mid-study.