Certification of Research Staff

I am Dr. Jeff Kingsley and this is another edition of Riding in Cars With Researchers! Today we are talking to patients about the level of training of the research staff seeing you in a research trial. I have a dirty little secret to share with you. There are a lot of undertrained people in the research industry. A lot. There are a lot of research coordinators that have not had adequate training and support when they get into research. There are research coordinators who’ve been in research for years, but if you test them, they cannot pass a test on their research knowledge. Meaning they haven’t learned all that much. And the same is true in physicians. There are physicians that are very competent physicians, have little to no research experience, but are given the ability to be Investigators in research trials. That is a dirty little secret in our industry. And that is something we need to stop; something we need to fight against.

Certification Improves Outcomes

If you follow all of the editions of Riding in Cars With Researchers, then you will know that I’ve talked about certification and the value of certification in research. But today we are focused on patients. Certification has been shown to improve outcomes. So if you, as a patient, are in a research trial, with a certified research coordinator, and a certified Principal Investigator, your data is more likely to mean more. You giving of yourself is more likely to make a difference in the world because you are being cared for by a certified coordinator and a certified Principal Investigator. I’ve never had a patient ask me if I was certified – which I am.