Does anyone work in Clinical Trials? Question!

[rentalnewbie]

This is off-topic but in the past I have found this community to be very helpful and I don't know who else to ask.

My partner (in life) has had a hard time determining a career path. He is currently employed somewhat gainfully but there is no future with his current job (and the management are jerks). We are both 30 and our FIRE date is at least 10 years off. If he can move into a better paying career, it could help move our date up but really, if he can be happier in his job it would make the years better also.

He has a masters degree in Philosophy of Bioethics from a top tier university and we live in an area where there are lots of clinical trials jobs. He would like to move into this but after applying for entry-level clinical trials assistant jobs for a year he hasn't had a single interview. In-addition to his bioethics degree, he has some experience in a lab setting (but plants, not human). We have done the typical things changing his cover letters, applying to different companies, including 6-month contract roles to break in, etc with no results.

Therefore, it would seem that he is not a qualified enough candidate to get to the interview stage you need to be top 3-4 usually. The local community college offers a clinical trials certificate which is 18 credit hours and $3,000 in total cost (it is a non-profit community college). We are now considering that he could do this, probably while continuing to work at his crap job. We can easily afford the cost. If it goes well, there is also a level II certificate that he could get later on.

Does anyone work in this field? If so, do you think this could help or is this some kind of BS certificate that will do nothing for him?The college is not required to post any stats on job placements for this program, which concerns me somewhat.

[NoStacheOhio]

Have you tried talking to the faculty directly? They may not publish job stats, but if they're having good results they'll want to tell you about them.

[Papa bear]

I've staffed management roles and clinical research coordinators for a pharmaceutical clinical trial private company.  They have moved to having their staff have more of a clinical background, such as a year or two as an RN.  There are other research roles in town, but they tend to be academic and the experience doesn't translate well to the clinical drug trials.

I am not an expert in this area. This is just my experience having worked with one company in one market over the past year. So data this is not. 

It might help to call and talk to a recruiter, HR, or management directly to see what backgrounds they search out for their specific organization.  Job descriptions rarely mean much and are meant to be broad.


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[rentalnewbie]

Thank you for response Papa Bear, I had also wondered if really you needed to have a nursing background. Just because they don't require it doesn't mean they don't want you to have it to be a top candidate, as you say. In your experience, would you say an LPN program would be better? It's twice as many credit hours and he doesn't want to be a nurse so this would be require more thought.

We are in a different market then you (NC - research triangle park area) but I doubt it would vary too much in what's wanted, only what's available in the hiring pool.

@NostacheOhio, I would rather talk to someone who had done the program, I don't trust the faculty! But maybe they have some people we could contact if we ask the school.

[Pigeon]

I'm a cancer survivor and the oncology practice I used participated in a large number of clinical trials (I was part of two) and had a research manager who manages the trials.  It is an RN.

[Papa bear]

Thank you for response Papa Bear, I had also wondered if really you needed to have a nursing background. Just because they don't require it doesn't mean they don't want you to have it to be a top candidate, as you say. In your experience, would you say an LPN program would be better? It's twice as many credit hours and he doesn't want to be a nurse so this would be require more thought.

We are in a different market then you (NC - research triangle park area) but I doubt it would vary too much in what's wanted, only what's available in the hiring pool.

@NostacheOhio, I would rather talk to someone who had done the program, I don't trust the faculty! But maybe they have some people we could contact if we ask the school.

The particular firm I work with prefers RN's but they do hire LPN's for the same roles.  We don't recruit LPN's for them because there is more volume of them in the market and they don't have a need for a third party to find that skill set.

Regardless of the clinical background, though, a bachelors degree (in anything at all) is required. 

Your partner could get an ASN for his RN if he wanted to go that route.  Otherwise, where you live, look for research coordinator roles at the local universities.  It will be a position heavier on data and analysis and shouldn't require clinical experience.




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[NoStacheOhio]

@NostacheOhio, I would rather talk to someone who had done the program, I don't trust the faculty! But maybe they have some people we could contact if we ask the school.

Well yeah, if it's a good program, they'll by happy to hook you up with alumni working in the field.

[rentalnewbie]

Thank you for response Papa Bear, I had also wondered if really you needed to have a nursing background. Just because they don't require it doesn't mean they don't want you to have it to be a top candidate, as you say. In your experience, would you say an LPN program would be better? It's twice as many credit hours and he doesn't want to be a nurse so this would be require more thought.

We are in a different market then you (NC - research triangle park area) but I doubt it would vary too much in what's wanted, only what's available in the hiring pool.

@NostacheOhio, I would rather talk to someone who had done the program, I don't trust the faculty! But maybe they have some people we could contact if we ask the school.

The particular firm I work with prefers RN's but they do hire LPN's for the same roles.  We don't recruit LPN's for them because there is more volume of them in the market and they don't have a need for a third party to find that skill set.

Regardless of the clinical background, though, a bachelors degree (in anything at all) is required. 

Your partner could get an ASN for his RN if he wanted to go that route.  Otherwise, where you live, look for research coordinator roles at the local universities.  It will be a position heavier on data and analysis and shouldn't require clinical experience.


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That is interesting Papa Bear, I had assumed that the universities would be more competitive than the random pharma company down the road so that is good feedback. We are between UNC and Duke - both are doing tons clinical research so he can try to focus there.

The same school that has the certificate, offers an ASN degree. It appears that the courses for the certificate can be used for the ASN, so maybe he can start with the certificate and build into the ASN (we'll need to double check with the school that this is a route you can take). I think this was around 80 credits, so we're probably looking at 12-15k in tuition.

I think he would eventually need to pursue an RN classification to move up from the clinical trials assistant job to the higher paying coordinator and manager jobs.