CTC/CRA Intern Review

Doing the admin tasks associated with keeping clinical trials running smoothly, including but not limited to: - actioning weekly eTMF reports to correct document properties - running reports for study team meetings - finance - Printing and sending of hard copy documents to site - creating site files for sites - actioning any CRM/CRA requests As a CRA intern you also get to shadow a CRA and (normally in non-COVID times) attend site visits with them.

I've definitely learnt a great deal from the placement. Fundamentally I now have an appreciation of how clinical trials run in a pharmaceutical company (and the amount of work that goes into them). I think this year has been a great opportunity to gain confidence in working in a professional environment, whilst also massively improving my 'soft skills' (email/message etiquette, organisation, prioritisation, public speaking, efficiently navigating my way around Microsoft packages etc).

Yes - although for each role (CTC and CRA) you have a mentor who essentially takes responsibility for training you whilst also having general oversight of everything you're doing. This is particularly the case for the CRA role; for the CTC role - once you're comfortable with what you're doing - you do end up working as your own entity (just dependent on your CTC mentor's workload). However for CRA you will never take individual responsibility for executing tasks. So you are given responsibility, but there is always oversight. However, in that, your working relationships are very one-on-one (or at least have been in a remote setting due to the pandemic) and your workload is entirely dependent on your CTC mentor. This does mean if issues crop up, it can be an intense and difficult to navigate, (as don't have a wider support network), and I also found it quite stressful not having my own work to take ownership of, but instead having to work to another person's workload (so can't take anticipate tasks as much or organise your own workload directly)

The internship is set up really well for the CTC/CRA interns, in the fact that you have 3 individual mentors to go to for support (CTC - who is the person you essentially work with full time and navigate their workload -, CRA, and CRM). On top of that there's the general intern manager too that you can reach out to at any point. I would say I don't believe the CTC mentor role maybe had as much structure/oversight as it could have (I think that's maybe a symptom of the year being remote due to COVID, so it's much harder to appreciate what people are doing/what other interns and their mentors are doing), as from discussing with the other interns, the type of tasks we did, and the workload we each had varied by quite a bit. But generally the support and guidance is really good throughout the placement - I think particularly with it being remote it was more of an instance of not appreciation what was normal, so not knowing when to reach out (but in the instance that you ever did need to reach out about any sort of worry, the support you received was fantastic).

Everyone in the company was incredibly nice. They were friendly, helpful and understanding (when first learning the job, and you have no idea what's going on!). I would say towards the tail end of the year, the general atmosphere got more tense/slightly more sour - I think this was mostly due everyone having a lot on their plate, so being more stressed than perhaps usual. That was just a general vibe though (in meetings etc), in all the individual interactions I've had with people everyone's been lovely throughout the year.

I did really enjoy my year. I did rate the social opportunities as 1 above, but realistically this is due to COVID, and the fact that I've worked remotely for a year. So it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with MSD, just the fact that I haven't actually got to meet anyone I work with face to face! The fact I was working with 7 other interns was one of my main reasons for picking this placement, so not having that daily social interaction was definitely different to my expectations going into the year (but again, the circumstances with COVID is completely out of their control). I have learnt an awful amount, and it has set me up really well for going into my final year of uni. I would say that it is a very admin based job, for those who may not be aware (as I wasn't fully prior to the year), so expect to go into the year knowing you will have to do a lot of printing, filtering of spreadsheets, and searching for documents. Having said that, doing the admin side has been a brilliant way to develop all of my soft skills (even if it didn't necessarily stimulate me intellectually as much as I may have hoped), and that is something that I will be able to take forward to uni, further study and beyond into a professional job.

Yes

- Go into the year knowing what to expect (very admin based) - Make the most of any opportunities that come your way - Talk honestly with the other interns about what they're experiencing - do they have a similar workload, do they have any opportunities that you would like to be a part of, etc. - If you have uni work to do, make it an expectation from the start that you will need to dedicate some working hours to it (i.e. maybe ask for a few hours a week on a Friday afternoon), I didn't necessarily do that, or even when I had established it, I just continued to do MSD work as I felt it needed to be done (because there will always be work to do). You need to be your own advocate and state that your time is important too. Obviously you will need to spend some of your own time outside of work to it, but I found trying to do it solely in my own time wasn't feasible for completing a thesis alongside working a full time job (particularly when the thesis revolves around your work/placement year).