Everything can change, in a New York Minute
Eagles
Do you know that Eagles song1: In a New York Minute? ‘Everything can change in a New York minute.’ The meaning of that is explained in the Urban Dictionary2 as ‘the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn’. Only just an instant.
In the field of Clinical Research, it often feels like things are moving at a snail’s pace when we’re talking about change. The ‘Research Minute’ sometimes seems to be the opposite of the New York Minute. Clinical Research has changed over the past decennia. Technology has advanced, and guidelines and regulations have increased. But at the same time, time and money restraints are forcing everyone to do more work in less time whilst still performing at top level.
Clinical research is serious business. Human beings are asked to volunteer for experimental treatments, which inherently have an increased risk for them, without the certainty of increased benefits. We need to make sure that they are as safe as can be and that their rights are protected as best we can. And at the same time, we need to ensure credible trial results, so that their efforts are not in vain and future treatment choices are based on reliable outcomes.
Whilst all that is going on, research professionals are eager to improve on what they do. However, there’s little time to find sources of information.
This is what ‘In a Research minute’ is intended to provide. Topics to think about, and talk about. Topics that can lead to discussion. Lead us to reconsider why we do what we do.
As a trainer and auditor, I get a lot of questions about why certain things are done the way they are done. Sometimes we are doing things because they’ve always been done that way, without actually knowing why. And when people ask questions on why they get different answers. And sometimes even the ‘because GCP dictates it’ answer, without knowing why that is, or even if that is really so.
With ‘In a Research Minute’, I want to provide some answers to those questions. The topics and questions are from training and audits, but can just the same be directly from the Research Minute audience. I’ll give some tips and point out resources and opportunities. And I hope you’ll enjoy!
In a Research Minute will be a series of 1-minute videos, introducing the topic or question, accompanied by a post that will explore the topic some more. Let me know what you think! researchminute@trial-and-eric.com.