Associate Clinical Study Specialist Review

I greatly enjoyed my placement as a Clinical Study Specialist at GSK. It not only gave me a great insight into the specific role but clinical development in general. In addition to my daily responsibilities as part of my role, I also was able to be involved in other fun aspects of company life including becoming a GSK STEM ambassador and helping the site events committee. These provided additional opportunities to develop new skills and to network.

I cannot praise my colleagues highly enough! I felt very welcome in the team and the wider organisation from the beginning. My ideas and opinions were always listened to and taken on board. My colleagues were great at providing feedback and providing help and advice when necessary. In addition, towards the end of my placement, some of my newer colleagues even came to me for help and advice so I really felt like I was treated as an equal.

I was given a good amount of support and guidance by management, supervisors and colleagues. I had formal 1:1s with my manager fairly regularly but also felt comfortable approaching them when I needed assistance or advice in between. I also felt that I was provided with sufficient opportunities and resources to solve problems by myself.

My workload varied throughout the year. Some periods were quiet but my understanding is that this is to be expected in the role I was undertaking as workload depends on the specific stages of the clinical studies being worked on. However, even during these periods there were other opportunities to occupy my time such as STEM outreach work. At other time points I was very busy but my line manager ensured that my workload was manageable.

On the whole I had the same responsibilities as permanent colleagues in my team. I worked independently on clinical studies and other business projects with support from mentors at the beginning. However, due to the nature of the role and the fact that it was a year-long placement it was not possible for me to be assigned responsibilities on longer term projects.

While undertaking my particular role did not directly expand my knowledge of the scientific concepts I had been studying in my biochemistry degree, this placement did greatly increase my knowledge of clinical development. I have decided that I wish to pursue a career in this industry after undertaking a masters in Drug Development so my experience assisting clinical study teams will surely come in useful for this. In addition, I have developed a variety of soft skills including verbal communication from leading meetings and delivering presentations, written communication from composing emails and time-management from juggling multiple projects simultaneously. These skills are likely to be useful for my degree assignments and future career.

The atmosphere was very supportive. Every member of staff I met (including at a senior level) was friendly and open to talking to me about their career and offering advice and guidance. The site held regular events and freebies for staff including barbecues and coffee mornings. Dress code was smart-casual Monday-Thursday and casual on Fridays.

Overall very well-organised. GSK placement students are complementary workers employed by SRG. SRG were generally efficient to deal with and quickly responded to any queries. However I did find that SRG left some compliance procedures to the very last minute before my placement started which made on-boarding quite stressful. However, GSK and my specific team were very organised with respect to my placement.

I was able to undertake a lot of training while on placement including the standard formal online training modules required for my role as well as informal 1:1 training sessions with subject matter experts. In addition, I was able to attend more general educational training sessions on other aspects of clinical studies which did not directly link to my role such as monitoring and drug safety.

While I am hoping to complete a Masters course after I finish my undergraduate degree, multiple members of staff asked me to consider GSK when I was applying to a job. I had many opportunities to build my professional network while on placement and met a number of permanent employees who had secured a job with the company after having completed a placement there.

The IP Unite committee at GSK organise regular social events including a Christmas party and summer ball for all GSK placement students. Each GSK site has a IP Unite site lead who is responsible for organising social events for placement students at that site. In addition, the team I was based in held occasional social events such as team lunches and even a trampolining outing!

I lived at home while on placement so this question does not really apply to me. The Stockley Park site is on the outskirts of London so not as expensive as the centre but still quite pricey. The gym on the Stockley Park site is very expensive but there are other more budget gyms in the area. There are a wide range of chain restaurants around which are affordable.

While I am not a fan of going out myself, I know that it is easy to access central London from this site so you can easily take advantage of the hundreds of bars and clubs there. The immediate area also has a club and a number of bars and restaurants.

There were many additional opportunities outside of my "day job". Placement students were able to become a GSK STEM ambassador which enabled us to run and attend STEM outreach events internally and externally in addition to our day job. I also attended the Journal Club on site where placement students took it in turns to present an article from a medical journal which we discussed and critiqued as a group supervised by an experienced physician.