Lol that is funny. When I was in school I thought being a CRA was cool and a easy way to travel for free and work from home! I have a friend who is a CRA and now that she is older she hates it due to the constant travel. She has a job now that is focused in NJ so that's better but it is still tiring. I think it all depends on the person. At work there are some people who work in clinical and they love it as it's real data real science and there are others that hate the routine and strict regulation.

The clinical research path I know would not be something for me. But I do see it to be a good learning experience and provide a great base knowledge in regards to clinical studies and how the whole documentation process is handled per clinical trial participant. Also, it helps to understand at firsthand how the patients work with the device and what type of considerations should be considered during the design phase. And ultimately, this can help biomedical engineers gain some field experience that can be very useful when designing medical devices themselves.

I would really enjoy going into R&D, but not within the clinical research area. I feel that this aspect within industry is probably one of the toughest. I attached a link to a website that talks about the pros and cons for clinical research associates.
https://uihc.org/pros-and-cons-clinical-research

I’m not sure if clinical research would be the path for me either. I have some experience in creating clinical trial material and I did not enjoy it. It was very tedious and the amount of paperwork involved was enough to make your head spin. The other thing to take into account is the huge liability involved with a clinical trial, which puts a lot of pressure on everyone involved because in some cases, there are lives at risk of loss and someone has to be held accountable for that loss.

Agreeing with everyone, I would add my experience with CROs. I had multiple interviews to work as a clinical associate or project associate with these organizations. And during the interview process and the tour of the facilities, I noticed that it required more paperwork, direct contact with clients but its not what you would find working as an engineer or directly with a project. And from my knowledge you don't always get to see the full scope of the project. You might be given a small task or one part of a task and that is all you will do. You wouldn't necessarily get to see the entire project form start to finish or be given full input to what the task you are doing has to do with the initial project.

My knowledge on this might be wrong but that is what learned or assumed during my interviews.

With my current experience working in the industry, taking part in clinical trials can be a very daunting task with quite a lot of paperwork. Finding a statistical significance can vary from 500 patients to even a couple thousand, so continually performing the same tests and procedures can get very repetitive. I would be more interested in working in research and development of a product or device. It would be exciting to see a product start from the initiating phase to the closing/transfer phase.

It seem that a lot of people here had agree with me that Clinical research wouldn’t take this career path, one thing that I do like was that CRA can travel for free and work for home that’s one of the good benefit but like jnm22 friend, after a period of time she got tired of traveling this seem for a person that lived alone, and don’t have to worry about their family. Which I believe is great for students coming out of school, which allow them to learn something new, as I mention before clinical research wouldn’t be for me not because of the travel it just for the work is needs to be done. I read Chris Vasquez pros and cons they were many thing I wasn’t aware of and it was actually good resource.

I do agree with the above posts up to a certain extent. Yes the testing portion of any trial can be very time consuming and daunting but accomplishing your goals is the most rewarding. Ideally in a R&D facility, engineers draft the protocols and plans and most of the time test technicians are the ones that execute the tests which really takes a huge load off the researchers. As far as clinical research that must deal with patients directly is where the researcher might be needed to go through the testing from beginning to end. If you are interested in the research portion, you can go into the R&D, product development side of the industry and not necessarily the clinical research sector.

My company recently underwent a restructuring and recently formed a new clinical department. Before this we really did not focus our efforts on clinical studies, as we were releasing products via 510ks that were similar to other products in the market and did not require a clinical trial. However, we are now looking at new materials and would like to use more clinical data to prove that our products are truly differentiating. While at this time I do not see myself working in the clinical department, I still would like to talk to some people working on clinical studies and get a better idea of what their job is like.

I think I actually have a different opinion with you guys. I worked in clinical research for at least 2-3 years in a hospital in NJ and I wouldn't mind working in clinical trials, maybe as a study coordinator or PI. I found the process of the managing the processes, overseeing multiple ongoing studies and keeping track/chasing deadlines fun. I also like interacting with people, doctors, other PIs, RAs etc. I agree about the amount of paperwork, regulation and unspoken rules but once you know your way around, things are quite repetitive, so you most likely have an idea so what's coming next. Overall, I don't think it is as bad as it sounds.

I am not personally involved in the clinical aspect of medical device development. However, in the future I would like to at one point be part of this process as it seems to be very interesting. In the previous course, Medical Device Development, I was the clinical trial member. The work seemed to be very hands on and more interactive with the patients in a way that you don’t get in manufacturing or R&D.

During your work as a CRA, you will do studies may involve the development of a new medication or assessment of a new medical device.A CRA is one of the clinical science jobs that offers many opportunities to choose the best environment for your career goals. AS a CRA, you will be working with patients, physicians, medical writers and many other health professionals, which means you more experience in the filed.
Finally, as a CRA you could make more than 100K annual salary after 3-5 years experience on the field of medical device or biomedical engineering in general.

I never saw myself in the career path of clinical research due to the constant need for travel. I was interested in a period of time in the career path of research, so I interned within the human performance lab within a rehabilitation center for a period of time. It was a great experience, but I found myself exploring more of the industry in terms of production engineering. I have had coworkers that advised me to enter the field of clinical physiology while I was young. Because the older you get the more hectic it becomes to continuously travel with other responsibilities such as having a family. It is an interesting field to work with patients and physicians directly rather than behind the scenes. Its based on the individuals preference.

In the current company I work for, I could potentially see myself working in Clinical Development (basically the same as clinical research). I would be able to screen the patients for the trails, create the protocol needed for the trials to operate, analyze the data received from all the cases, teach/troubleshoot with physicians while cases are taking place, and work with R&D directly to improve/design solutions for complaints from physicians. With all that said I feel like clinical development is a great mix of R&D and Clinical. Yes, the traveling may suck but you get a tone of real-life exposure to how the device you are working on is performing.