Research Assistant II - Division of Breast Surgery
General Summary/Overview Statement:
The Division of Breast Surgery within the Department of Surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) provides state of the art care to patients with breast complaints. Members of the Division include breast surgeons, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nurses that evaluate and treat patients with benign breast complaints, high risk lesions, and breast cancer at the BWH Comprehensive Breast Health Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In addition to providing clinical care, members of the Division are involved in collaborative research efforts that span the continuum of breast care from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and survivorship. The goal of this research effort is to set new standards for the evaluation and treatment of benign and malignant breast disease. We now seek a full-time research assistant to work with our multidisciplinary team as we expand our research efforts. This is an exciting and challenging opportunity for an individual who is motivated to work with both clinical and research staff to develop and implement research related projects including but not limited to: data collection and analysis via patient centered surveys, coordination of bio-specimen collection, and recruitment for institutional review board (IRB) approved projects and trials. Principle duties may vary over time with grant funding, project demands and programmatic growth.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
- Working in concert with protocol or trial Principal Investigators and/or Research Manager or designee, develops and implements patient recruitment strategies.
- Conducts phlebotomy (blood draw) on research subjects (as needed).
- Assist with the development, organization, and/or maintaining study databases. Responsible for data validation and quality control. Database platforms used include Access, Excel and/or Redcap.
- Assist team in the coordination of project-related activities (i.e., data collection, surveys/interviews, coordination of bio-specimen collection) at internal or external (on site & off site) study sites.
- Review of patient information for recruitment and other study purposes, ensuring that patient privacy and confidentiality is protected at all times.
- Identify, contact, recruit and enroll research participants.
- Assist with coordination and preparation of project related meetings as requested. May be responsible for meeting minutes.
- Coordinate pilot testing of study and surveys as needed.
- Conduct relevant literature searches and reviews as requested.
- Assist with documentation for and communication with IRB.
- Other project-related or administrative responsibilities as requested by management.
- Prepare investigators with data analysis and manuscript preparation and presentation of study results.
- Other duties as assigned.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in public health, natural or social science preferred.
- 1+ years of experience and have demonstrated sound independent judgement and competencies in research methodologies.
- Excellent interpersonal skills, dependable, motivated and willingness to learn new tasks.
- Expected to provide certification showing completion of a phlebotomy training course and will need to be obtained within 60 days of hire.
Skills/Abilities/Competencies Required:
- Ability to work independently.
- Excellent interpersonal skills are required for working with the study participants.
- Good oral and written communication skills.
- Analytical skills and the ability to resolve technical or research problems and issues and to interpret the acceptability of data results.
- Knowledge of clinical research protocols.
- High degree of computer literacy.
- Excellent organizational skills and ability to prioritize a variety of tasks.
- Careful attention to detail.
- Ability to demonstrate professionalism and respect for subject’s rights and individual needs.
- Ability to related effectively in-person and on the telephone to diverse groups of patients, physicians, nurses, researchers, children and parents.
- Ability to work independently with minimal supervision.
- Ability to approach projects in a responsible and thorough manner.