Article written by the Pharmaspecific Society, a specialist in clinical research

Today, I would like to talk to you about an interesting topic. An Internet user asked me if she had the qualities for the CRA profession. She first described herself and then asked me if the job was right for her. So I decided to record this video to help you think about this.

Indeed, it would be a shame to work in a trade or start training only to find out later that it doesn’t suit you at all. It would be an admission of failure. Take the time to reflect on yourself: do you really have the qualities for this job?

For me, the first quality is to think critically. In other words, being able to weigh the pros and cons in order to make decisions, and above all not to make them hastily. This helps to find preventive and corrective actions in the context of clinical trials, to help the centres to better manage the trials. It is important to think critically. Try to think about this point: do you really have that quality that would really help you in this CRA job?

The second important thing is courage. Indeed, you will have to defend your proposals, explain the reasoning behind this or that decision, this or that solution, in front of doctors, TECs, project managers… This courage allows you to take responsibility for your choices, your decisions or your proposals, to justify your reasoning to others.

You must also be diligent and persevering. In the CRA profession, there are many tasks to accomplish. You have to stay the course and keep up a certain pace, which can be difficult. Getting up at 5 a.m., getting home at 10:30 p.m. and the next day, getting up and being able to stay the course, to get the job done and keep going every day, even though sometimes there can be periods of lull. But you have to be able to handle the pressure. Being persevering and diligent is important in our profession.

You also have to have social intelligence. You have to be able to understand other people’s feelings, adapt to the situation, put others at ease… So if you understand others better, you can influence them more easily. You will be able to get them to follow good practices, to adhere to your proposals, and that is your job as a CRA. You have to make sure that you help them to do clinical trials better. To do that, you also need to be able to influence your staff. This is not a negative thing; it is influencing in a positive way to achieve « good » clinical research.

As a bonus, I will give you what I think are the values to be a project manager. In order to accede to this position, you need all these values that I have just given you, but I think you need others that are just as important:

– As a project manager, it’s important to be creative, to propose other original methods to improve the work, ours, but also that of our team and to make sure that it is done in the most pleasant way possible. You also have to have this creative side to be able to organise the work in the best possible way.

– The last value and quality that is important to have is leadership. It is the ability to encourage others, to lead them towards a goal. If you want to be a project leader, you have to ask yourself if you are a leader, you have to be able to make sure that others can follow you in your project and have confidence in you. It really takes that quality to lead a team. It’s as important as creativity.

I wanted to tell you what qualities I thought would be important for me to have in order to be an CRA. It takes courage, perseverance, critical thinking, and to be a project leader, you need all these qualities but also leadership and creativity.

Thank you all! Good luck with your activities!

You need a service in clinical research? Contact PHARMASPECIFIC by visiting our website by clicking here: https://pharmaspecific.com/devis/.

If you have questions about being a clinical research associate or a career in clinical research, you can put them in the comments below. We will respond to you as soon as possible.

If you want to be coached, if you want a personalized answer to your questions or if you want to be in contact with other clinical research professionals, you can go to https://pharmaspecific-training.com/.{:}