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hello guru nation welcome
back to another episode this is going to
be a special one because it's one
that i haven't done in a long time
probably
since the beginning of my youtube
channel so
i know we have a lot more viewers now a
lot more listeners on the podcast
and so there's a lot more opportunities
to bring you
new stuff and new perspectives and you
know got some
grays in my beard so we've you know i've
learned a little bit more
about this kind of stuff and i've
actually been through um
some hiring pro like a quite a bit of
hiring
process myself with with clinical
research coordinators
so this video this episode is going to
be
how to become a clinical research
coordinator now before we start i want
to tell you we have a crc
academy that's a clinical research
coordinator academy
that sets you up for success basically
and all the stuff we're going to talk
about
in this particular episode uh
we actually help you with a lot of that
stuff there so a lot of the stuff here
that sounds like a lot of hard work
a lot of blood sweat and tears that that
a lot of these strategies may entail
we kind of make that a little less
painful for you in the crc academy
besides also
giving you the three-month course which
is like the fundamentals of being a
coordinator
it's a three-month online course but
then we have the internship component
which is really where the magic happens
for clinical research coordinator so
with all that being said
how does one become a clinical research
coordinator
there's several possibilities i mean
probably as many as you can imagine
but usually somebody becomes a study
coordinator either because
they work for a doctor and
the doctor decides to start getting into
research
for him or herself and so they start to
promote
people from within so these doctors
offices they all
often have medical assistance and
a lot of times these medical assistants
because they already know how to draw
blood they already know
how to do vitals they already know how
to do a lot of the um
on the ground type of work with the
patients which is what a coordinator of
oftentimes is going to be required to do
not always
some sites really have everything
streamlined to where
they have somebody who draws blood
somebody who processes the blood
somebody who screens the patients
on the phone so like pre-screening visit
somebody who does a consent form with
the patient
somebody who enters the data in the edc
you have
sites that are streamlined but the
majority of sites
the coordinator does everything
everything i just mentioned
and more sometimes the coordinators even
do recruitment of patients
sometimes recoordinators even sometimes
study coordinators even
get involved in the budget the contracts
and budgets
the startup regulatory the regulatory
maintenance
you can watch all this stuff in my
five-hour video on clinical research all
the details
of what a coordinator does what a cra
does
but how to become a coordinator number
one
you either lock into it because you
happen to work with a doctor
who is doing research and they promote
you
or maybe you work at an academic medical
center
or a hospital where they're also doing
research
and they promote you so then you kind of
become aware
of clinical research but let's assume
that's not you let's assume you're
someone just watching this
or listening and you're thinking okay
well how do i become
a clinical research coordinator and you
gotta
look at the research sites in your area
you gotta know where they are i wouldn't
really
spend too much time with the big sites
like the hospitals or the academic
medical centers in your area
unless you feel good about doing that or
you really want to work in one of those
places
you can go try and intern there
but you'll have much better success
interning at a local
smaller type of site in your area
so how do you find these sites in your
area you google
you just google research clinic and then
your zip code
and you should see different stuff pop
up or you can put clinical research
and your zip code and see different
sites pop up
another thing you can do is uh go on
clinicaltrials.gov
and search for your zip code or your
city in your state
and then you'll find a list of studies
uh and it if if that's the search
criteria you used on clinicaltrials.gov
then every listing that comes up will
have one site
that's in your area so then you need to
click on each listing and go look at
study locations
on clinicaltrails.gov there's a tab that
says study locations
once you click on the study you can see
study locations towards the
middle to bottom of the clinical
trials.gov listing
and sometimes they'll have the site name
other times they won't so then you're
out of luck there
but sometimes they have the site name
sometimes they even have a phone number
for the site sometimes they even have an
email of somebody at the site
however it is you gotta first identify
the sites
in your area that you wanna intern at
then you gotta start thinking putting
yourself in their shoes
what do they need and what do you have
what can you provide them even if it's
an internship okay
people sites they don't necessarily want
to waste time
training people even if it's for free
because
number one many people at the site level
they don't have time to do that
and number two many are not even good at
training
people they want people that are already
experienced
so you've got to figure out what you can
do to provide that site with
real value for example if you're a
medical assistant
you probably know how to draw blood
probably not to do vital signs you
probably know how to do
ecg's you probably know how to do a lot
of things that take up
time for that site so you can go
volunteer
at the clinic and say hey you know i'm a
medical assistant
i want to get involved in clinical
research i'll intern here for free if
you need help drawing blood or
processing
labs if you want extra credit if this is
the route you go
go get an iada iata go get a free
aida certificate online just google
iada training iata
and uh if you need help with the link
email me dan at
theclinicaltrialsguru.com
i'll send you the actual link um but
that's
one of the things i would do if you're a
medical assistant another thing
to add to your repertoire is figure out
how to get studies for the sites figure
out how to do business development
for the sites so since you've already
gone on clinicaltrials.gov
to identify sites in your area you're
familiar with clinicaltrails.gov
so now just go on clinicaltrials.gov
find out what kind of studies
those sites do that are in your area so
you're going to map them out you should
probably have an excel sheet
or a word document and then you have
each site
and underneath you'll have the different
therapeutic areas that they specialize
in this is where you get to do your due
diligence
it's a lot of work it's a lot of work
even to work for free for somebody
it's a lot of work as you can see but
it's the way to go
in my opinion so and i've interviewed
somebody
before you get discouraged and say this
sounds like a lot of work it will never
happen for me
i just interviewed somebody from my cra
academy
um who i just interviewed somebody i
think she was from my cra academy
uh no no she was not in my cra academy
because if you're in my cra academy you
already have the internship part set up
for you as well
so i just interviewed somebody who tried
this strategy
and the like the third site that she
approached
decided to hire her not just intern i
think she interned there for like a week
and then they offered her a job and
she's a full-time study coordinator now
without my academy without anything
right i think she read my book i think
she watched the five hour video and she
watched some videos like this
or listen to some podcasts like this
where
i give strategies on how to do this so
identify
map out do your due diligence identify
which sites are in your area
and identify what therapeutic areas they
specialize
in and then go one by one so let's say
site a
does respiratory studies then you'll go
on clinicaltrials.gov
and you will look up asthma studies you
will look
up a different respiratory diseases and
conditions
on clinicaltrials.gov and you
can map out those potential studies that
those sites can participate in
um there's tons of studies on
clinicaltrials.gov so you've got to go
to
you've got to filter it out if you put
asthma you need to filter it out you
need to put not yet recruiting
or actively recruiting and you've got to
put
united states you've got to put industry
sponsored
okay where it says funding type industry
sponsored
uh and that should be it that should be
enough criteria to narrow
down potential studies then you can
start emailing those study contacts on
clinicaltrials.gov from the sponsor or
the cro
you can start emailing those people
the fact that you represent several
research clinics in your area
and this particular
these you have several sites that are
potentially interested in the study
and if they need to send any cdas or
feasibility surveys they should send
them to you
now keep in mind you're not telling the
sponsor
that you're representing any one
specific site because you're not yet
right the site hasn't given you
permission to do that yet so i don't
want you to get sued
or get in trouble you can just say that
you work with several
sites in your area if you're in atlanta
you can say i work with
multiple sites in the atlanta area uh
there they would be interested in asthma
studies so if you
if you need any sites let me know then i
can give the sites the cdas and things
like that
if they actually if the sponsors
actually send you a cda
or ask you questions about specifics
about that site
even more reason for you to go to the
site and say hey you know what i've been
i do business development in the
community for different sites
and i've been approached by a sponsor
about
getting potential sites for this asthma
study
um so you can go in with this homework i
mean this would be the ideal situation
you don't have to actually go this far
but
if it goes that far go with it because
that's that's really what the sites care
about
but you can just tell the sites hey you
know i go on clinicaltrails.gov every
single day
and i look for studies for sites if you
want me to do that for you guys for free
i'll do it you don't even need to pay me
what i want in return
is experience on my resume because
at the end of the day that's how you
become
involved in clinical research like shout
out to the group latinos and clinical
research
we have a lot of members in here that
are coordinators that are now
started out as coordinators that now are
cras and do other things site owners
site directors
we have other people who are striving to
be coordinators in this group as well so
one of the other things to do is network
we latinos and clinical research all
ethnicities welcome
just go to latinos in
clinicalresearch.com the link
is in the video description or in the
show notes if you're on the podcast
so you basically gotta go to the sites
and tell them
show them what value you can provide to
them
and people have used this strategy
and have gotten hired people that have
watched my videos have gone
and gotten hired using this strategy
another option you can go is you can go
to the sites
and you can do your due diligence with
the research sites in your area
and you could look to see do they have
an instagram page do they have a
facebook page
do they have a youtube channel what do
they have do they have a blog what does
their website look like
maybe you can offer your services for
free like hey i noticed you don't have
an instagram page
or i noticed you have an instagram page
but it's not very active
i can manage your instagram profile for
you
here's what i want in return i want just
the intern here i just want to volunteer
here so i can get experience
i'll do the i'll manage your instagram
for you
you know whatever you need i can do it
uh facebook page same
thing that's another easy way to get
sites to bring
to take you on because every site needs
these kind of things
but not every site has the time even if
they have an instagram page or a
facebook page
takes a lot of time to actually manage
that it's almost a full-time job just to
manage the social profiles these days in
a 2021 world
so that's where you can come in and say
you know what i can do that for you
and in exchange i just want internship
experience here i want to put studies on
my resume
so that i can go get hired as a
coordinator somewhere
and you know what more often than not
they will end up hiring you because
everybody wants everybody every site
needs coordinators there's a shortage
of clinical research coordinators so
that's something that also works in your
favor
another thing that you can do is maybe
you can do community outreach so that
means either
doing community outreach for those sites
to get them potential patients for their
studies
or doing community outreach for those
sites to get the attention of other
clinicians
in the community to maybe refer patients
or maybe
work with the site so you can tell the
site that you
are also a business development
specialist in addition to getting
studies or managing the social profiles
you can also do community outreach where
you can go out
uh through lunch and learns you can pass
flyers out at stores
you can pass flyers out in different
doctors offices
about the research programs that the
sites have
sites would love this sites would
definitely let you intern there
if you were to offer them something in
exchange all you gotta do
is get your foot in the door just a
little
once it's in there it's up to you to
just push it back
kick it open and then you'll get in
there and you'll inevitably start be
getting exposed to different aspects
of site dynamics okay and if they like
you
they're gonna eventually have you get
more and more involved in the research
aspects like hey go enter this data
or hey dan this was one of the first
things i was tasked to do on my first
day working at a research site
go buy dry ice we need dry ice go to the
grocery store and buy dry ice because we
need to ship these lab samples out
so doing little things like that help
you out if you can afford
to volunteer some time at a research
clinic
you should definitely go the internship
route
because it won't last too long if you
are
a hard worker they are going to hire you
at some point so that's how you become a
clinical research coordinator
if you are someone who can't work for
free you absolutely cannot
work for free it's going to be a little
bit harder
for you maybe a lot harder for you
because basically you can't
use these strategies other than saying
i have done business development in the
past so maybe you should
still get on clinicaltrials.gov and try
to find studies
studies for sites in your area so that
you can go to the site or you can put it
on your resume
familiar with clinicaltrials.gov
business development
and then that will stick out to the site
if you put that on your resume or in
your cover letter that will stick out to
the sale they'll say what do you mean by
this
and then you'll explain well i go on
clinicaltrials.gov i know how to contact
sponsors and
request that sites participate in
studies
actually do it a few times so that you
can say that you know how to do it
because once you do it
you're no longer inexperienced you're
technically not even research naive
anymore because you're doing business
development
even if it's for yourself as your own
like
sole proprietor so put that on your
cover letter
hopefully you have a strong background
in medicine you don't need a medical
background to be a coordinator
but if you're not if you can't go the
internship route you have to get paid
somehow from day one
then hopefully you have a strong medical
background
or something maybe you're a medical
assistant and you could on day one
draw someone's blood or do someone's ecg
because
you don't need training on that you've
already gotten the training on that
or maybe you're a foreign trained
physician you know a lot of foreign
trained physicians
become really good study coordinators
and so
why are they valuable well foreign
trained physicians are valuable because
they understand medicine obviously
they're doctors they just happen to be
doctors from another country
so they understand medicine they
understand drug drug interactions they
understand
lab results and even how to read lab
results and how to read ecg's and all
those kind of things
so that's a valuable to the site you
can't really teach somebody that
you're bringing those skills to the
forefront with you
so if you can't go the internship route
which i laid out in the beginning
i still think you should practice some
of those things the easiest one to do
from the comfort of your own home
is the clinicaltrials.gov business
development where you're trying to get
studies for sites
put that in your cover letter put that
on your resume
and even if you're going the internship
route you should put that in your cover
letter and on your resume
as well as everything else you're good
at doing if you're good at managing
instagram profiles do that put
everything you can
on there and then start applying or just
go reach out to different sites
use linkedin join groups like this
latinos and clinical research
join groups like my patreon channel
where it's a monthly mastermind where
you get to meet other people from the
life sciences industry we do a monthly
zoom call
live there's so much business that we've
done in my patreon channel
and we've it's only been around for like
eight months
it's crazy the amount of business we've
been doing with each other
um i mean you gotta try to network okay
latinos and clinical research absolutely
free my patreon channel
five bucks a month put yourself out
there put yourself
in these situations try to join the
association of clinical research
professionals
you're not gonna get acrp certified but
try to join
become a member and then try to go to
their meetings if there's only virtual
meetings try to do that just
expose yourself to research
talk to different people in your area
about what it is that you want to do
talk to different people in in your area
about your skill set
good people are really tough to find
good coordinators are worth
their weight in gold you can do it
alright
and let me know what your progress is
following
this video to the t you should have
success
good luck
