Careers in Clinical Research

Careers in Clinical Research

CRO is the new BPO, or call it KPO if you like to.

Contract outsourcing by any name or rather many names! Clinical Research, the new career option for the medical, paramedical, life sciences graduates and postgraduates is less about research and more about development.
So les get a few facts straight, It is not about discovering new drugs, not about exciting Eureka moments in the lab for the next best thing in prolonging life, eliminating obesity, zapping cancers, producing designer babies or reading people’ minds!
It is about running trials or collecting, entering, analyzing, reporting data on a day to day basis ,that prove/disprove that the drugs under development are safe and effective for patients.

And you do it the way the regulatory (read govt agencies) ask you to and you do it in a way that your conscience lets you sleep a night of peace.

Which basically means you follow plenty of rules and regulations all the time, (not just when someone is watching) and you learn to deal effectively with data, documents, records, paper, non-paper, some useful, some just plain fanciful!

Oh, So does everyone do this? Allopathic Doctors, Pharamacists, Life sciences people, Physiotherapists, Ayurveds, homeopaths, other graduates?

Ah,Yes! Everyone, except in different shades of green and degrees of separation.

But why am I talking about this? Because every day , my mailbox is flooded with young, bright hopefuls looking for a suitable opportunity in my small company.

What is this suitable opportunity? And what happens after the opportunity comes by?

Here lies the catch. The PGDCR diploma givers tell you that the industry is awash with opportunity, and fat salaries, and charge you a bomb for telling you that.
Being a CRA is what you dream of or its Data management companies you seek.
What they don’t tell you is that the fat salaries happen by and by, not on the first day of your first job and it does not help to jump jobs at the next 5% raise offer that comes along.. What they don’t tell you is that if you have a rock solid degree, which is in demand, you would have still got the great job without the diploma for which you took a loan. What they don’t tell you is that though you all might have done the same course and learnt the same things, the Industry will look at what professional degree you hold prior and offer you opportunities accordingly.
Which essentially means your PGDCR helps but is not the golden key that fits all doors.

But the industry excites you and you still want to be part of it. And it’s a great career you dream of. What do you do and how??
Is there more to this industry than being a CRA and what are the challenges it offers, in my next post.

Till then……