Staying Flexible and Creating my CV

Working at home isn't all bad but I
have to stay focused and shoo off
distractions like my little yorkie, George.

I have been kicked back at home in my bunny slippers pouring through the SOPs and online training courses for my new CRA gig. As of orientation, I was assigned to one study but now I have been picked up for 2 different ones (luckily in lieu of the first rather than in addition!). One of the first tasks every new CRA at a CRO must complete is entering your Curriculum Vitae (CV) into the corporate database. CV is fancy biotech jargon for résumé (Wikipedia tells me that CV is Latin meaning "course of life" and résumé is French meaning "summary"). Basically, you want to chronicle all of your past relevant work experience but more importantly, you must complete an inventory of all of your relevant skills and therapeutic experience. I had to indicate which Phases of clinical trials I have experience in, what types of studies I have worked on, and quantify everything...3 months? 6 months? 1 year? The other fun part of the CV was the summary section where you write a little paragraph about yourself in the third person.

BIOGRAPHY
Nadia BoBadia, BS is a CRA II responsible for monitoring clinical studies with various indications. Before joining the company, Ms. BoBadia was employed as an in-house CRA I at a specialty cardiovascular biotech company, where she managed site budgets/negotiation,forecasts/accruals, and processing/disputing invoices, along with monitoring 3 Phase I cardiovascular and pulmonary trials. She traveled internationally to support FDA audit inspection preparation visits and NDA triggered activities for 2 large Phase III studies. For two years Ms. BoBadia was employed at a CRO and an Electronic Data Capture (EDC) company performing data management functions including designing CRFs and clinical study databases for a variety of therapeutic areas. Prior to that she was employed at one of the top 3 pharmaceutical companies and a large biotech performing commercial product and field sales personnel support for pulmonary and CNS indications. She has additional experience as a project assistant on a Phase III Ophthalmology study. She joined the company in 2007 as a CRA II.

So this electronic CV is what the sponsors (pharmaceutical and biotech companies that have contracted with my service company to run part or all of their studies) use to decide whether or not you are appropriately trained to work on their studies. So even though I have a job, it is like I am constantly interviewing in order to be able to do my job (get billable hours/activities). I know in time my skills inventory will be so impressive that sponsors will be delighted to pick me up for their studies so that is definitely satisfying.

Half of the folks from my training class are already out traveling and monitoring but I have to finish my study specific training (reading the protocol, monitoring plan, sponsor SOPs, etc.) and receive my site assignments. Right now I am projected to start traveling the week of Dec 2nd so I am just enjoying the downtime while it lasts. I have been enrolling in benefits, setting up my home office, playing with my new printer/fax/scanner, ordering office supplies, and generally keeping myself busy.