what kind of is the period progression what can someone expect when they get in
you know entry level let's say as a clinical trial assistant you know where
does the career often take them I would say if you start out as CTA then your
options would be move on to B which most people do move on to the CRA role some I
do know some people that went on to like the project management side of things I
don't really know the career progression for that but I know that some CTAs do
move on to the other side and go to project management through a different
route and they don't do the CRA route but as far as the CRA route it will be C
ta CRA and then depending on the company you work for and what they call these
people you know it would be like your project manager and then like the the
project lead for all of the countries or the global or just depends on what
company you work for what they call it so yeah that's the general progression
that I would say it's about accurate or you could do instead of going to project
management you can do line management right okay as far as you what what kind
of interests you about the progression I mean I know a lot of people that just
like go to CRA and then they're like see arrays for like 15 20 years
I guess that senior CRA is also are you making good living doing that what do
you what about what about you what do you think yeah I know
several CRA that have been doing this for over 10 years that is not my plan I
do plan to you know eventually whenever I want to start a family or something
this just I just don't see how women there are women that do it but I don't
see how they you know raise children and have a family and
travel as much as we do so I would say you know I would be looking to move out
of the CRA Road once that happens whenever that happens but just in
general for me I am not really sure what route I want to go because I'm kind of
on the line of if I want to go into project management at all just because I
just feel like they just have no likes I
came from that world before I came over to the clinical side and you're exactly
right they have no lives yes I'm kind of I
seen like a couple of CRA League positions which I was like you know I
think I may be interested in that whenever I stop traveling interested in
the CRA lead and then determining what to go to next from there but I'm not
really sure I'm still trying to figure that part out for myself we definitely
definitely got some time so you definitely got some time to think about
that yeah it doesn't seem like there's like I know a lot of times in other
professions you you've got to wait for your boss to leave or something to get a
promotion we've got to wait for somebody to die to get a promotion pretty much
but it's definitely not that like that in clinical research would you agree
yeah I would agree for the most part I think as far as getting promotions while
you're CRA it's pretty easy to get promotions while you're CRA to the next
level of CRA I think when it becomes tough is when you try to transition out
of the CRA position when you try to go to those upper roles I think it becomes
tougher to get the positions because I spoke with a lot of senior CRA s and
they just you know they're telling me like they're trying to get out of the
CRA role but there's not enough project management positions or there's not
enough line management position or some of them just want to stay SC Ras
but a lot of the time they just tell me like it's tough to get a position in
project management after CRA yeah I can see that because there's just a matter
of whatever company you work for having that open you know project
management position for you at the time that you're ready to transition because
they may have it a year before you're ready to transition or a year after
you're ready you know right so it's just a matter of timing yeah and there could
be like increased competition for it because you know a lot of these places
do have project management training programs mm-hmm in place for like the
other people under the project manager like project coordinator project
specialist you know whatever the title is they all have different titles but
they have like a development process for them also mm-hmm so that that's
interesting so plenty of space there on the edge on
the end to think about what you want career-wise but yeah do you see yourself
being in clinical research for a long time I do see myself being in clinical
research for a long time I say that I'm still trying to figure out exactly what
I want to do because now I'm opening myself to looking at the business side
and different things like that so I'm also like looking into the finite
finance aspect of clinical research so I'm just all over the place right now
just trying to figure out like what area I want to go into after I'm done with
the CRA role okay how about how about contract monitoring
but you do that see I've never actually heard of that so I'm not even sure I've
never heard of a contract monitor no I'm not a contract monitor oh wow I've heard
of I've heard of people that I do the contracts in the beginning for the sites
is that what you are referring to no I'm talking about
like a monitor they'll bring on like a contractor so they'll pay them hourly oh
okay yeah see I was thinking about I was thinking about like contract that's
money come got it got it got it okay yeah no contract monitoring yeah I've
heard I've know a lot about it and I know that they get paid very very well
when they're brought on as a contractor but just the other side of that is just
the benefit side so if I were to do it I would just have to wait you know not
having the benefits and how much it would cost to go and get those benefits
and then you also have to set up your own like LLC and everything like that
and you know with the whole tax situation so it would just be something
that I will really have to research and you know speak to somebody else that's
done it but I know a few a few CRA s that I used to work with they are now
contractors and so I have people that I can speak to it about but I know most
contractors they have like at least five years experience at least right yeah
it's hard to be a contractor unless you don't have a lot of experience yeah okay
yeah so definitely another another option there for people I know a lot of
people do like moving into the contract side yeah yeah you do get paid every
hour you work exactly door-to-door jeez I can only imagine what some of those
paychecks look like exactly especially especially if if your study has you
flying all over the place right right man especially imagine going east to
west coast just getting paid to like sit on a plane exactly and I know some some
CRA s that even did went to different countries so they would go over they
would go over like a couple series that I know that did contracting they lived
in New York and so they would go over to like London and he would go over to
where else be he go he went to London and he went to Canada and he what's a
few other places but he could like
because he went somewhere else where it was a different language but he could
speak the language yeah so he was fine there are opportunities out there and
you you you could say something to this - there are opportunities out there for
monitors that do speak other languages to monitor internationally do you know
anything about that um there's definitely opportunities out
there I've seen them on LinkedIn all the time I've actually like just looked up
some in different countries just to see like you know what the you know what the
job area is looking like in those countries and they have a lot of just as
many maybe not just as many as the US but they have a lot of CRA positions
open for sure but you do have to speak the language and a lot of the times what
will trip you up if you're coming from the US is knowing their local
regulations so if you don't know their local regulations and you can't speak
their language you're not gonna get hired you know now obviously it would
make it easier if you know you speak the language but you still have to know
their local regulations because I have a few ex co-workers that I know interview
for positions in other countries but they didn't get it because they didn't
know the local they didn't know enough about the local regulations