Thoughts from a Lab Rat

Some chide the clinic for being old and cramped. Other lauds the clinic for its attentive staff. I find the clinic to be a welcome relief from the big box clinics where everyone is pushed through number by number. The ACPRU has a maximum capacity of 36 but routinely runs 2/3 full. There are only dozens of staff members as opposed to hundreds. During the time you are at the clinic, you get to know the staff and they get to know you. While the dorm rooms may be sparse, a bed with a headboard cubicle shelf, maybe a bathroom, maybe a desk, maybe a humidifier or fan and a view of the parking lot or the surrounding neighborhood, they provide a quiet place to read or rest. Back to the humidifier, the unit is very dry and your skin will feel it after a few days. The humidifier helps a little. The meals are prepared by the hospital, Vista Medical Center East. Every now and again the hospital volunteers host a bingo session played on the TV’s. Play for glamorous prizes against everyone staying in Abbott and everyone else in the hospital. Truly a memorable experience. The clinic uses an electronic logging system which I feel every clinic should use. Every procedure whether it’s a meal, blood draw or vitals is logged using a bar code on a badge you wear around your neck. This provides accurate logging of procedures to the second. You are allowed to have visitors during the day but you and your visitors must stay in the lobby. Visitation is rare nowadays so it’s a nice perk. There is a computer room with a few public computers. Wifi access is only available on the east wing or the area around the computer room. There is a TV with Playstation 2 in a hallway closet. There are 3 satellite TV’s and plenty of videos and board games. All in all, the ACPRU is a pleasant place to spend a few days or longer while helping to further medical science.

If you haven’t lined up a good long study by now, there will be fewer choices come the middle of November and most of December. Almost all clinics close down for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some clinics might run one or two through Thanksgiving but I haven’t heard of any going through Christmas. You’re not going to be able to be as choosey either. Everyone wants a little extra “feel good” money for the holidays. So pick something that works out for your schedule and go for it. Don’t sit around hoping for a big study because at this time of the year, it is unlikely to materialize. However, most clinics will start screening early January studies starting in the middle of December.

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I have started to receive some checks from my partner clinics so obviously volunteers have been mentioning me and my site as their referral source! Thank you all so much. Also, t-shirts sales have been pretty good! Horray! As always, if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to email. Thanks!

Bristol-Myers-Squibb CRU closes it doors October 31st. The last study is currently in-house. I have heard rumors that the clinic is being subcontracted to a company in Florida. I will post details when they become available.

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There are several clinics now that require proof of local residence. Quintiles will only accept volunteers within a 100 mile radius. MDS in Phoenix and Lincoln require local addresses. Pracs and Prism also require local addresses. The primarily reason seems to be that the clinic wants to make sure that volunteers will be able to make all study dates and have had problems in the past with ‘out of towners’ bailing mid-way through studies. I can certainly understand the frustration and the added costs to the clinic. It costs about $400 to $500 to screen a volunteer. If a volunteer misses an in-house stay and or out-patient visit, then his/her results are useless. Clinics want to have some assurance that the people who screen will follow through as long as they are qualified. If volunteers keep bailing mid-way through studies, then more clinics are going to enact local address rules. If you know you can’t make an in-house stay and or out-patient visit, then don’t screen for the study. Don’t ruin it for others who enjoy traveling to studies in distant cities.

For years, people have used adulterants or masking agents to hide their illicit drug use in their urine. These products are readily available at local health and vitamin stores and online. The purpose of an adulterant is to mask or dilute a particular substance, usually illicit drugs or alcohol. While the effectiveness has been questionable, many clinics are now using adulterant tests which can detect the chemicals used in adulterants. So, be forewarned. Not only are they a waste of money since few actually work, using one can also get you banned from a clinic as having a positive adulterant test is the same as a positive illicit drug test.

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The Informed Consent and rules forms are probably the most important documents you will sign before participating in a clinical research study. These forms outlines the drug(s) that you will be taking, the dosage amounts, how many times you will dose, possible and known side-effects, procedures that will be done for screening, procedures that will be done during the study, payment information and the rights and expectations of research volunteers. Yes, volunteers. Though you are getting paid, you are still volunteering to be in the study and thus can leave any time even if it means getting paid less. I find that most of the problems subjects have during a study have been clearly outlined in the informed consent and rules forms. If you know that you have a problem with any of the study procedures or rules, then you should not participate in the study. As I have touched on before, the rules are there for a reason. To ensure that the study is carried out as the sponsor has requested and to ensure the safety of the participants. So before you participate in a study, ready the informed consent and rules forms carefully. You have the opportunity to ask questions during the screening and at anytime during the study but once you are in the study, you are expected and required to follow the rules and procedures of the study and clinic.

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Testees premièred on the FX channel on Oct 9th. I missed it but will try to watch it online somewhere. The show is a comedy about 2 roommates who work as test subjects for a company called Testico. I’m sure it’s miles off from what actually happens in research and probably covers other aspects of research rather than just medicine.

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While clinics try to provide as much entertainment and activities for subjects to do during their long stays, most subjects eventually get bored and find themselves reading the phonebook or making new games using Monopoly, Jenga and checkers. We live in great times right now with new respectable laptops selling for cheaper than used and refurbished laptops. Nowadays, you can go to Best Buy almost any day of the week and buy a new laptop for under $600. Every other week or so, they have at least 1 laptop in the $400 to $500 range. And these are decent laptops. If all you want to do is play some lite games, surf the web and watch YouTube, then these laptops will fit the bill. If you want to play some of the heavier games then you would need a better, slightly more expensive laptop. If your going to buy a new laptop, you should get one that has at least a dual core processor, I prefer Intel. You need at least 1 gig of ram but you will be much better off with at least 2 gigs of ram. Hard drive space is not a huge issue as most new laptops come with at least 100 gigs. If you need more space, you can always get an external USB drive with much more space than onboard storage. Almost all laptops are wide-screen which is great for watching movies. Even the basement laptops are coming with DVD burners but make sure it has one if you need one. The major down sides to the lower end laptops is that most have limited or no extra ports like HDMI, S-Video, fire-wire, blue-tooth and internal ports like PCI-express. Pretty much all laptops come with some form of wifi and LAN port for hardwire connectivity. There is also an increasing amount of mini laptops known as Netbooks that are much smaller than a laptop but usually limited on processor speed, storage and ram. If you were interested in a Netbook, I would recommend the Acer Aspire with 80 gig hd, 512/1 gig ram/Intel Atom and xp. I would avoid any netbook with any version of vista.

In the end, it’s all about the money.

That of course is NOT how I see things and why I have provided this site as a resource for free since its inception in 2004.

I believe that the internet should be a place for everyone to freely exchange ideas and information. Quite frankly, if you don’t want the world to know something, don’t put it on the front page of your website. With that said, it is important to point out that each clinic profile page on my site has been put together using freely available public information and that the embedded web pages primarily showing current studies for a clinic are merely linking to the clinic page which again, is freely available to the public. With the exception of a handful of clinics, I do not receive study information from the clinics.

My site was designed to streamline the process of locating studies and to provide potential volunteers with insight and reminders of what clinical research is all about. This site promotes ethical and responsible behavior by research volunteers as well as serving as a benchmarking tool for clinics to help improve the experience they provide to volunteers. This site will always be free and due to being hosted as an organization website (.org) will always be advertisement free with the exception of raising monetary support via t-shirt sales to help offset webhosting costs.