Clinical Trials Courses

Clinical trials are the process in which medical professionals test certain types of medications, procedures, and devices on human volunteers to find new vaccines, new drugs, and new methods to cure diseases. Humans usually sign up for a clinical study, and that study gets extended into clinical trials. In a clinical trial, researchers attempt to learn the impact of a drug, a device, or a medical procedure on a person showing a certain set of criteria. In these tests, the outcome is unknown, and the researchers attempt different methods to see where the results may lead. Volunteers may be tested on different things like a change in a person's diet, a medical procedure, or a medical product involving drugs or a device.

Clinical trials often use comparison testing to assess new or unproven medical approaches to those already available. In more dangerous clinical studies, medical researchers may use lab rats as initial test participants.‎

Learning about clinical trials can give you a wide-reaching understanding of the healthcare process and the steps that medical researchers take to test new drugs to use on our population. You will learn valuable insights into the four main phases that new drugs are tested before receiving approval from the FDA.

Clinical trials are important to learn as you will discover new facts of how, in some cases, clinical trials may be sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, government medical centers, or federal agencies like the National Institute of Health (NIH) or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If you have a strong interest in finding new cures for diseases, you can participate in clinical trials offered in your local town or city.‎

Typical careers associated with clinical trials usually involve all types of medical professionals, healthcare researchers, doctors, nurses, social workers, and others who might be part of the research team. Those already working in a medical profession who have an interest in clinical trials can research their own organizations to learn about career prospects. Other careers may be on the corporate side for large pharmaceutical companies or large healthcare organizations, in working as an in-house researcher or fundraiser for clinical trial sponsors.‎

When you take online courses about clinical trials, you can gain relevant insights about testing data, clinical data collection, and clinical data management. You will also learn key elements about drug discovery, drug regulations, clinical research, development, and trial design, among other topics.‎