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Striking the ideal balance of planning, executing, and overseeing clinical trials between research sponsors, contract research organization (CRO) personnel, and study site teams is like the proverbial three-legged stool scenario. Shortcomings on the part of any one of the partners can pitch the whole project askew. 

According to Dean Jang, CCRC, a Site Director for IMA Clinical Research in Austin, Texas, far from serving only short-term goals, mentorship is the perfect vehicle for (among other purposes) providing a transparent career ladder that outlines clear internal growth paths. These paths are ideally aimed at retaining new clinical research coordinators and other incoming study team members beyond what may be accelerated, sink-or-swim training periods at highly active sites. 

While having members of clinical trial teams take specimens from and record data about study participants can become a familiar feature of measuring their progress through a trial to researchers and patients alike, none of them may be thinking at the time about how those physical and digital leftovers can have an afterlife in later research. 

With research nurse coordinators playing what is to outsiders an often underrecognized role in strengthening and championing many clinical trials teams, a partnership between one such team and an academic nursing program aims to introduce nursing students to clinical research as a meaningful and dynamic career option. 

In clinical research settings, “vulnerable populations” refer to groups of people who can be harmed, manipulated, coerced, or deceived by unscrupulous researchers because of their limited decision-making ability, lack of power, or disadvantaged status. However, individuals from these populations may legitimately participate in clinical trials under ethical and well-managed conditions,