Clinical Trial Coordinator Review

I loved my work placement at MSD, I got a huge insight in to the company as a whole and gained many personal and professional skills whilst enjoying meeting new people and working in the vibrant city of London.

I was given the same responsibilities as the full time employees and really felt that my work was making a difference. My colleagues always thanked me for my efforts and my work never went unrecognised.

Each intern had their own manager and I met with mine once a month to discuss any problems, what I've been up to and to speak about my goals and objectives. I always felt like I could speak to my manager about anything.

I always had some sort of work to do. If I was ever running out of things to do, my manager would get me involved in unique projects and tasks, increasing my experience.

I was given the same amount of responsibility in most things as my full time colleagues. I had my own studies which only I was coordinating and that made me feel valued and gave me a wider experience of being in the job role.

The clinical research training I have gained from this placement will definitely help me if I decide to come back to this industry. The personal skills I have got e.g. working full time and communicating with colleagues will stick with me forever, no matter what career path I choose to go down.

Great, lively and friendly. Everyone in the office was always happy to have a chat and help us out with anything. We often had office events where we could get to know each other and socialise. This definitely helped create a comfortable atmosphere.

Very well. We started off with a month training schedule where we learnt the basics and got handed over studies from the previous years interns. The over lap of us and them really helped us learn from their experience and knowledge. We also had key milestones where we would do different things e.g. in February we went to visit the Cramlington MSD site.

MSD allowed us to attend many training events. We went on a GCP training weekend in Dublin to broaden our GCP knowledge. We attended bi monthly department meetings where we would be trained on different parts of the job. We also had intern training every so often to help us fit in to the role.

I would love to come back and work for MSD fulltime. I think it is the perfect career for a graduate as you really become part of the team and they teach you everything you need to know including basic clinical research skills.

One of the reasons why I enjoyed my placement year so much was because of the friends I made. Myself and my fellow placement students went on many trips away together and did so many activities around London after work and at weekends. We also made good friends with the full time employees in the office and often did activities with them too.

Luckily, my family live in London so I had cheaper rent than others. London is quite an expensive place for activities and socialising but we managed to find deals and offers all the time.

Nightlife in London is great. There is always a party somewhere no matter what day of the week! We also found student nights in London which are a bit more cheaper and relaxed than clubs in Mayfair for example.

Many, one of the interns liked to organise activities for us to all do together after work and at weekends and everyone in the office was always keen to be involved.