The Lead CRA Blog: blog

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Today in History (and TheLeadCRA.com blog traffic statistics)

On October 12th:

1792 – the first celebration of Columbus Day commemorated the 300th anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Caribbean in 1492.

12-Oct-1999: A teacup yorkshire terrier
named George (the author's favorite artist
from the band The Beatles) is born.

1850 – The 1st women's medical school, the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, opens.
1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital in Boston.
1968 – The music single "Hey Jude" by The Beatles tops the charts.
1976 – The People's Republic of China announces that Hua Guofeng is the successor to the late Mao Zedong as chairman of Communist Party of China.
1997 – John Denver, American singer dies at the age of 52 in a private plane crash.
1999 – Sir. George Basil, a teacup yorkshire terrier is the only survivor in a litter of five (and subsequently adopted by this blog's author).
2010 – Returning via airplane to San Francisco with her boss after nine Site Initiation Visits in less than eight weeks, the blog author, NadiaBoBadia is offered (and accepts) a free upgrade to the First class cabin. Remarkably, NadiaBoBadia is still regularly teased by her co-workers for not agreeing to surrender the upgrade to her supervisor.

12-Oct-2010: NadiaBoBadia enjoys a complimentary fruit and cheese plate,
watches some TV in her comfy First class seat, and sends a
free glass of wine back to her boss who has to ride in Coach.

12-Oct-2007:
The Inception of The Lead CRA blog

Oh yes, and I almost forgot to mention that on October 12th, 2007 after 1.5 years working as an in-house CRA, I received an employment offer to become a Regional CRA and I launched "The Lead CRA" blog. I have really enjoyed sharing my experiences these past few years and I am more committed than ever to maintaining and updated the blog.

Today I am pausing to give a special thank you to my loyal readers; to both of you, thanks so much! ;) I've made many new connections with other clinical research professionals, some virtual and some in-person, all priceless to me.

A Snapshot of Blog Activity to Date

Actually, the blog traffic has increased to the point that I have purchased my own domain, a server cloud, and considered relocating to Wordpress. All that and the entire blog is still relatively small with less than 100 posts and pages published since inception. Just in the past 12 months, LeadCRA.blogspot.com has welcomed 10,000 visitors (65% of the readers arrive via a search engine, 20% of the readers are subscribed or come directly through links, email, or referring sites). Roughly 40% of my visitors are repeat visitors so I continue to strive to provide content that keeps you interested and encourages you to return.

Google Analytics tells me visitors have arrived at leadcra.blogspot..com from 3700+
cities representing108 unique countries. I am surprised to discover that the content
has been translated into nearly 80 languages other than English. Wow!
(North America-54%; South Asia-11%, East Asia-7%; Western Europe-7%; SE Asia-4%...)

These statistics may seem pretty pedestrian for any of the fellow geeks in the crowd, but because the content I write is very focused, specific, and niche, I'm really quite thrilled with the turnout. I am grateful to have the opportunity to continue to author relevant and (hopefully) interesting blog posts. Your comments and emails definitely keep me going, so let's continue to stay in touch. I have ~200 all-time comments - thanks!

Since last Fall, I've received 75+ personal emails with feedback, suggestions, career advice/resume questions, and a variety of other reader-recommended topics. You can read through the archives here. Thank you for your patience when I don't respond to email straight away; remember this blog is my hobby and not my day job. Despite the fact that I still only update the blog just once or twice a month, the project continues to be fun and rewarding.

What's Next?
I have some exciting new content planned for the blog and I am always open to ideas for new topics. I'd like to see some of the content I have developed get published in a professional journal, referenced in other industry websites, or disseminated through other social channels. Therefore, I am working on several of these efforts in parallel this Fall. I hope you will continue to check-in (please accept a free subscription by clicking this link if you have not already done so) and I always encourage you to share LeadCRA.blogspot.com URL with other Clinical Research Professionals so that we can maintain and grow readership.

Thank you once again for following along!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Summer Vacation

I hope everyone has exciting plans for the summer or at least a plan to beat the heat. Temperatures in San Francisco were almost 75 degrees Fahrenheit this week. I don't have air conditioning and my home is in the upper level of a beautiful Edwardian building...at the top of four flights of stairs, this has been a scorcher by SF standards. ;)

I've planned a lot of exciting content for the blog in the coming months so I hope you will continue to follow along. I've invited several guest contributors to help generate topics and content; I really can't wait to share some of the series' we have come up with so please stay tuned.

I will visit Guangzhou, Dali, and Lijiang this summer.
I had to get a new passport and visa because I ran
out of space in my old one - can't wait!

I am planning a vacation to Hong Kong and Yunnan province in July but I'll queue up some posts and address your comments and questions as I find time. I've been corresponding with many of you via email but I have been on a bit of a hiatus from the official Lead CRA blog due to a lot of competing priorities at home and work; I'll include some of the topics of broader interest here for your perusal very soon.

Thanks again for your loyal readership. You can always reach out to me in the comments section of any post or email me at leadcra-mail@yahoo.com if there are items you would like featured or if you have any monitoring questions. Here's to a wonderful summer for all you hardworking clinical research professionals!

Monday, June 14, 2010

Blogroll! Plus a Sampling of Podcasts

I spend a lot of time hanging around in airports, bored in different hotels, and riding in airplanes since I do travel to work. My favorite ways to pass the time are to catch up on email, read the news, read books or wikipedia, or dart through online blogs that interest me. When I am too tired to read, I can have online content delivered right to me with my iPhone and podcasts. Here are some of my blogs, and podcasts that you may like to check out. Please email me or leave a comment if there are oher blogs or podcasts you can recommend I check out - I'm always happy to give new content a try.

Blogs: You can read blogs via RSS feed (add them to your myyahoo homepage for example), have them emailed to you in digest format, or have them aggregated into a feedburner or feed reader. I like reader.google.com. I access my blogs from multiple devices (PC, iPhone, iPad, etc.) but google keeps track of exactly which ones I have read and allows me to sort and filter the content on the fly. I even subscribe to the comment feeds for some of my blogs and google keeps that organized, too. Reading online content at 30,000 feet is an issue if the airplane doesn't offer internet service but I am hoping I can overcome that with a scraper service like readitlater...I just need to be home for more than 20 minutes one day to figure out how it works and get it setup. Please keep reading my blog and also consider checking these out:

Clinical Research Industry Blogs:

WQATS: QA Talk - A Quality Assurance auditor and excellent businesswoman.
Drug Daily Bulletin - A round-up of Pharmaceutical news stories.
Experiencing The RN Refresher Process - A CRA who finds herself unemployed and decides to return to patient care.

Frequent Traveler Blogs:

One Mile at a Time - A college student and travel consultant.
Road Warriorette - A 30-something frequent business traveler with impeccable taste and great style.
Fly Gracefully - Another female business traveler.
The Flying Pinto (Flight Attendant)
Up Up & A Gay: A Flight Attendant Blo

For Fun:

The Beauty Brains - Dispelling myths and marketing messages about cosmetics with a little but of science.
Corporette - Geared towards female lawyers but broad enough that I still enjoy my free subscription anyway.
Krapps.com - Reviews of some off the beaten path (mostly inane) iPhone applications.
The MUNI Diaries - Tidbits and observations on board public transportation in San Francisco.
The Richmond District - All about a specific neighborhood in San Francisco.

Podcasts: You can find podcasts on any topic from cooking, to travel, to comedy, or anything else that interests you. Plus they are FREE! There are even video podcasts available. I listen to way more podcasts than I listen to music and I listen to most of my podcasts on doubletime. You can speed them up and listen to twice as many plus everyone sounds so funny like a chipmunk, it just never gets old to me! I even plug my iPhone into the rental car and listen to podcasts when I am stuck in LA traffic or driving long distances. Theoretically you can listen to podcasts while working out, but I never quite make it to the hotel gym when I am on the road. ;) Here is a sample of some that I subscribe to: