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Strapped for cash Four students describe how they put their skills to use to earn money Doing research on healthy volunteers Daniel Armstrong enjoys flexible working hours in the private sector Since my gap year, spent as an auxiliary nurse and phlebotomist in America, I have worked many weekends on various NHS wards as an auxiliary nurse, with the multitude of joys such employment brings. Occasionally a golden phlebotomy shift would arise, but on the whole this work entailed a large element of faecal matter. Luckily a friend at the nursing agency passed my name on to a local drug research unit, which was in need of flexible staff with experience in venepuncture, electrocardiography, and nursing. The difference was unbelievable.
Even as occasional staff member I am made to feel like a valuable part of the research team. The training and subsequent assessment is frequent, comprehensive, and scheduled well in advance, with great emphasis on staff leaving each session happy with the new technique, as opposed to troubleshooting at a later date "in vivo." The big difference from the NHS wards is the (welcome) lack of ill people. Volunteers are, as the word suggests, volunteering to be there. All are screened extensively and are normally young and fit (with good veins), and they are very keen and obliging, owing to the fact that they receive allowances for inconvenience. As a "ward technician," I am paid double what I would be paid in the NHS as an auxiliary nurse. Pay increases reflect duties performed and new skills acquired. With regard to fitting it all in - well, the hours are flexible and the staff are at great pains to make sure no lectures are missed (at times the maternal streak is a little too strong in some study coordinators). Most work I participate in takes place in the early morning during the most labour intensive part of a study, with some work later in the evening. It isn't a case of whether I can do an early shift; it's a discussion involving hours that I can do. Some days I'll do seven hours, others just an hour before a ward round. It's not really about money - well, not totally. It's about feeling that I'm doing something useful, as opposed to just passively trying to absorb information from a clinic, for example. It also gives me a little view into the "grown up" world, where people don't discuss which male consultant they think wears women's underwear or how many times they were sick the night before. I also get a lot of really useful training, which I get paid to attend - and you can never get enough practice at venepuncture or venous cannulation. The atmosphere is thoroughly enjoyable to work in. Staff aren't furiously fighting against time and lack of resources. The environment is professional, and there is the added bonus of introducing a medical student to the practicalities of drug research, which should hopefully produce a more astute prescriber, with the side effect of funding my own ethanol metabolism studies. Oh - and the biscuits in the private sector are of a much better quality. Daniel Armstrong third year medical student University of Nottingham
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