Research Fundamentals for New Site Staff

Early investment in proper training doesn't just benefit new staff—it strengthens your entire organization and the research ecosystem. SCRS is ready to tackle industry-wide training gaps, transforming research assistants, coordinators, and business teams into confident contributors. Learn how this foundational knowledge accelerates success and helps your team navigate challenges with clarity and purpose.

Save your seat today for the hands-on "Back to Basics" workshop at the Global Site Solutions Summit this September in Orlando. This intensive training equips research newcomers with must-have skills to thrive in clinical trials.

Transcript

Jimmy Bechtel: 0:00

Welcome to SCRS talks provided by the Society for Clinical Research Sites. Thank you for joining us as we explore the latest insights, trends, and innovations shaping clinical research today. I'm Jimmy Bechtel, the Vice President of Site Engagement with the Society, and today I'm joined by our very own Lauren Stockwell, who serves as our content and engagement manager. Lauren's here to share with us a new workshop that we're developing for the Global Site Solutions Summit. As you all know, SCRS is always looking for new ways to support sites, build strong, sustainable teams. And this year we're excited to highlight this new addition to the Summit agenda, the Back to Basics Fundamentals of Clinical Research Workshop. Lauren, before we jump in, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience and talk a little bit about yourself.

Lauren Stockwell: 0:46

Thank you so much, Jimmy. I'm so excited to be here. I'm even more excited to share a little bit about what inspired this workshop, why we created this workshop, and how it's gonna help serve sites of the future. As Jimmy said, my name is Lauren Stockwell. I am the SCRS Content and Engagement Manager. I am thrilled to be standing here today with you to really help push forward our educational initiatives and ensure that we have copious amounts of opportunities for people to learn and engage and really develop their own skills. And that's really what initially inspired this Back to Basics workshop.

Jimmy Bechtel: 1:21

That's great, Lauren and I couldn't agree more. Really exciting opportunities. So talk to us a little bit about background. What inspired, you and the SCRS team to launch this Back to Basics workshop at this year's summit? And talk about the gaps that it fills in the current training landscape for research sites.

Lauren Stockwell: 1:37

Yeah, absolutely. Coming personally from a background of education and building out more opportunities for education in this field, that is a constant need. There will always be a gap in education and training in this industry because we're constantly developing new medicines and constantly developing new ways to deliver that medicine and to create that medicine. And I think it's so important that as we continue to grow in technology, in complexity of protocols, in opportunities to explore other therapeutic areas. We provide more training and training that is actually functional. I think that that's something that SCRS has really empowered this year, through our cut 25 and 2025 initiative is how can we streamline and make training more efficient as we're going through it. That's really what inspired this Back to Basics workshop is how can we help support people from the ground level up, that exist in that research naive/ research limited, or even just wanting to learn more space. That is so critical that we support those folks so that way they can fill that back pipeline. It fills those gaps in the sense of that there's always gonna be a need for training and always gonna need be a need for support, especially at that ground level in that research, naive/ research limited space.

Jimmy Bechtel: 2:52

Yeah, that's a great point, Lauren. We see a lot of new sites out there, emerging sites, and we know that there's, like you said, there's such a need for young, hungry, inexperienced sites, new sites to be infused into the industry because it seems like the trend is in the opposite direction. So many are retiring, exiting the industry, et cetera. And we aren't getting sites into the space to backfill them.

Lauren Stockwell: 3:13

Mm-hmm. Exactly. And so this particular workshop and many of the initiatives that SCRS oversees really works to support that emerging site. That's really where our heart is, and that's where we started, and that's where we continue to allow space for those folks to have a voice at the table.

Jimmy Bechtel: 3:29

So who is the ideal participant then for this workshop? Lauren? We alluded to it. But how were their needs identified during the development of this process?

Lauren Stockwell: 3:39

Yeah, absolutely. I envision and our committee and our working group really envisions this being a great space for anybody that is research naive or research limited or just curious or hasn't gained the fundamentals maybe. We have these amazing, wonderful, optimistic things when we walk into a job. Our managers say, I can't wait to train you and I can't wait for you to learn all these things. But then we get busy and things happen, and oftentimes there are gaps in learning because of just doing your job. And so people pick things up as they go along, but they're not often taught the fundamentals from the ground up. And so that's a really important space that we're filling. The ideal candidate is anybody who's zero to 12 months, even further, honestly, depending on how they feel about their work. But it'll give them a really good, strong rooted why and purpose and understanding of the work that they're conducting every single day. I envision this going beyond even the site personnel and into potentially business development folks who are just entering this industry. You gotta know what you're selling, if you're gonna sell it. This can go into data coordinators. We have semi sub workshops activities based inside of those spaces as well. And I think it's so important that we touch on different aspects so that way we're supporting the industry as a whole, not just the CRC, and not just that individual that is conducting the trial, but it's the entire industry.

Jimmy Bechtel: 5:02

That's excellent, Lauren. Yeah. And you alluded to some of the topics then and concepts that we're gonna cover in this workshop. But can you dive into some of those a little bit more? What else are we planning on bringing to those that are attending?

Lauren Stockwell: 5:15

Yeah, absolutely. It's really a core of everything. And I say that lightly because obviously we cannot cover everything inside of a single day workshop. But our working group really looked at the industry as a whole and then took highlights of things that have been discussed across the board at other conferences, as well as SCRS conferences, topics that are needed such as GCP auditing and compliance, protocol adherence, patient work, even the roles within this industry, right? Kind of the dynamics across the board. So often as a CRC entering the field, I walk in and I'm like, I'm sorry, who's coming on site and what are they gonna do with my work? That's the CRA and let's talk about the different dynamics at each of the levels. We're gonna talk informed consent. We're gonna do mock business development conversations because in my opinion, whether your title ensues BD, you're still selling and you're still working to help amplify your site and be able to enroll patients. Part of it is customer service at the end of the day. There's a lot of fundamental topics that we're going through and we're gonna be doing a ton of mock activities because oftentimes me reading on a slide and chatting through a concept is fantastic and wonderful and the didactic rocks. But at the end of the day, if we're not breaking up into groups and applying these concepts, that's not going to stick in their brains. So we wanna make sure that it's sticking in their brains. They're helping to work through those concepts and getting kind of critiqued in the live interim by these industry professionals who have been doing this forever.

Jimmy Bechtel: 6:44

Great points, Lauren. Really exciting. These are a lot of the topics that these young thirsty sites are really looking for and set the foundation for them to be successful going forward. How does then, as we begin to wrap up our conversation, an early investment in training for some of these entry level team members or entry level sites, work to improve the performance and outcomes that these sites are looking for in the long run. This is kind of getting at the why. What do things like this ultimately translate into for a site? Should they choose to have some of their staff participate in something like this?

Lauren Stockwell: 7:16

Yeah. I mean. Jimmy, I want us to take three steps back actually in that particular question, and think of the industry as a whole. If we have a better trained next generation of workforce and if we have individuals who understand the why behind what they're doing and the dynamics that they have to work through and the GCP fundamentals and are really able to articulate that in a thoughtful way, that's going to create a better opportunity for us to create better medicine faster. Just purely whether they stay at that site or they don't. I think it's so important to understand that as a whole, our industry needs to work together to continue to conduct clinical research and to continue to conduct it in a really safe and ethical way. This particular workshop is really focused on allowing space for these sites to invest in their employees. When you're invested in as an employee and when you're shown that kindness of, Hey, I wanna ensure that you feel comfortable in your job and you feel confident in your job, I wanna send you to this workshop so that way you can feel comfortable for your job. That's me building investment in that employee and therefore people oftentimes, now of course, there's always catch 20 twos there, right? Some people are a little different, but oftentimes that leads back to less turnover and it leads to more loyalty within that employee because they've been invested in by their employer. And so that's a massive outcome. Beyond that, obviously we're hoping that this leads to better understanding of how to adhere to these protocols, how to enroll patients, how to have these types of conversations within the informed consent form, even GDP and following LOSC principles and, you know, AEs and SAEs, how to handle that. We're gonna really try and touch on a lot of these basics so that way they can walk away with at least an understanding. At least knowing where to look and knowing what questions to ask, that's so important. Especially if they're planning to attend the Global Site Solutions Summit right afterwards, they can then go into those conversations with more power, more meaning, and more understanding, and be able to go a little bit deeper versus having to ask all these basic questions or pretend that they know when they don't. So that's really something that I think is so important for teams to think of if they're choosing to invest inside of this.

Jimmy Bechtel: 9:31

That's a great list, Lauren, and a lot of sites will probably find a tremendous amount of value in one or many of those different aspects that this workshop can really bring to them and their team. So thank you for sharing some of those. Bring us home, Lauren, close us out here. If someone wants more information or is interested in attending this, what do they need to do?

Lauren Stockwell: 9:49

Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost, this is going to be running just ahead of our Global Site Solutions Summit. The Global Summit takes place September 29th through October 1st. This will be running just the Saturday before on September 27th from 10:00 AM. To 4:00 PM It is an add-on to the global summit registration with an additional cost. It's$395 for the entire day, and that includes your lunch. Advanced registration is required for this particular workshop because we're anticipating a full room, which will be really,wonderful to include and welcome up to 55 people, and we're hoping it'll sell out because I think that it's such a needed opportunity for us to help support that next generation.

Jimmy Bechtel: 10:34

Great. Excellent. Thanks Lauren. You heard that correctly, it will sell out. We sold out of our other workshops last year and it is an add-on to the global summit will be happening right before. So just wanted to underemphasize those two points as we look to do this. So Lauren, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing this with us. I'm really excited for the workshop. And as it continues to develop.

Lauren Stockwell: 10:55

Thank you so much, and I'm so excited to meet everybody and help support each and every single one of you. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to us. We'd be happy to answer them, and happy to kind of go through the entire agenda for the day.

Jimmy Bechtel: 11:08

Great. Thanks again, Lauren. For those of you listening, if you haven't yet to go ahead and register for the Global Site Solutions Summit you can find information on that summit as well as any of our other summits, our SCRs publications, and many other resources made available to the entire clinical research community at our website, my scs.org. And if you navigate to the summits tab, that's where you can find more information about the global summit and register for this workshop as well. Thanks for tuning in and thanks for listening, and until next time.