hey guys ecrg here back with another episode
today i've got a viewer submitted question and this
person writes in hey great fan of your podcast always
listening to it on my way to work in the morning
i'm a clinical research assistant with some experience in data analytics
looking for a career in clinical operations
i have a question and possible topic for another podcast episode
i'm always trying to stay up to date with the current industry news
and therefore i'm heavily interested in centralized and risk-based monitoring
in the digital future of clinical trial monitoring
who do you think will be working as a central monitor
what are the skills required and how can i better prepare now to get such a job
in the future if you have already talked about that
could you maybe hook me up with the episode number
or numbers cheers so for those of them been listening to
the channel or the podcast for a long time
you guys know i've done episodes before on central monitoring
and a little bit about it but i've gotten a lot
of we've got a lot of new people in the clinical research community
and a lot of new subscribers in that time so i'm
realizing that i should probably rehash some of the old
episodes or do those again for all the new people
on the channel thank you guys for subscribing of course and thank you guys
for supporting as always so the first question that they ask that
i want to respond to is who do you think will be working as a central monitor
so there are already central monitors working in the industry right now now
who are these people now one of the weird things about the
industry is that the same title but or same job function but different
title so you may have a central monitor at one
company you may have what's called a remote cra at another
company or you might have an in-house cra at another company
all three different titles but doing the same function
or similar function with different nuances
so a central monitor i know there are some companies that have this
this is a remote cra they are calling sites
they are you know doing monitoring so-called monitoring visits but these
are remote monitoring visits so they do them over the phone
they will ask them about saes they will ask them
to answer queries they'll ask them to put data in edc they'll remind them
about certain things about the study they will help them with enrollment
similar things thing things that the cra doesn't necessarily
have to focus on when they're on site the central monitor will kind of take
that burden off of them and definitely help the cra when they're
on site also they work in conjunction with the cra
so that's one model another model is you've got an in-house cra
which you know there's a there's a gamut of responsibilities that some companies
have when it comes to the in-house cra
position in-house cra can be very similar to the position i just mentioned
the central monitor position you know doing remote uh data review
doing telling the sites to recruit better talking with the study
coordinators blah blah blah what basically what i
just said another other companies will have the
in-house cra just collecting documents from the sites
and skinning them into the tmf that's also considered an in-house cra
at some companies so you've got to be careful and look at the job description
when you're applying for these jobs or when you want a job a particular
place to make sure it's the actual job that you want
in the actual role it has the actual responsibilities that you're actually
looking for because very common in the industry is
to have different title same responsibility or
different responsibilities same title so when it comes to the question like
who will work in these positions you know
these are positions that you can go get now
you just have to look at the role like i said so former study coordinators are
great in these roles other people that work in you know maybe
on the project management side of things but want to switch over to the
clinical operations side but don't necessarily want to travel
this role would be perfect for those people so those are the type of people
that are interested in these roles um i i was in a
in a role like this before i became a cra
so great role it's good it's a good stepping stone if you're
in an entry level position now you want to get some experience
in clinical operations before making the jump to cra it's a great role
or if you're having a hard time making that jump to cra go ahead and jump into
central monitor role they'll add more experience to your belt
get you experience talking to sites getting that
closer relationship with sites and it's going to help you in the
interview when you're interviewing for your first cra position
so i would definitely recommend that it's a great role
and you know some places as entry level other places it's not now some companies
are kind of moving more towards the central monitor being entry
level because if they're doing a lot of the cra work
then they then they can pay the cras less because the cras demand
command so much money so much more money than other people on the team
so that's interesting i don't think that's going to happen everywhere
just because cras are highly skilled but it's definitely something to think about
so that answers your question who do you think will be working as a central
monitor and then what are the skills required
and how can you prepare to get such a job in the future
so honestly you're working as a clinical research assistant now
so you didn't really specific specify if that is in the clinical
research industry or if that is maybe like a bench
research position or something like that so i'm gonna assume it's in the clinical
research industry and you've already got some experience
under your belt so you should be able to apply for a role like that right now
so i know there's companies like cineos health they have central monitor
positions that's a cro uh there are other
companies with remote cra positions i think doc's icon don't
quote me on that have those titles but there's a bunch of
those out there and i've said this before in other
episodes and i'll say it again one of the best ways to find jobs is
through indeed so what i do is i just type in clinical
research associate check that every single day because that
brings up cra jobs that brings up the entry level
project specialist project coordinator clinical trial assistant jobs
brings up project management jobs and of course it'll bring up central monitor
jobs so that's what i would do also if you
know people at these companies that do have them tell them to keep an
eye out for you and check that website every single day if
you're really interested because they're going to put them on the
website and to answer your question about the skills
required these type of skills are going to be you
know you got to be comfortable talking to people on the phone
you've got to be great with email great with organization
uh great with attention to detail those type of skills
so the skills you would have developed and fostered in your entry-level
clinical research role most likely of course you've got to be familiar with
your essential documents you got to be familiar with your tmf
also the tmf and how to put things into the tmf so
that's what i would say regarding that great
great role great position i think there will be more of these
positions opening up in the coming five years or so
but do not look at these positions to replace cras 100
the cra role will just adapt um and you know there are more and more
studies coming out every single day every single year so they're gonna need
people like these central monitors to uh kind
of ease the burden and you know they have a lot of great
functions and cool things that you can do with them
as well so that's what i would say about the central monitor position and
it's it's a great role look out for it and and it's a great position if you
want to become a cra one day too so that's what i would say as always
guys thank you thank you for your questions email me
eliteclinicalgroup gmail.com if you have a question of your own that
you would like me to answer and take care
you