Veterinary Clinical Research Associate
Pfizer

Rebecca W

0.00.00 My name’s Rebecca W and I’m a Veterinary Clinical Research Associate. The Veterinary Clinical Research Associate job involves coordinating and tracking clinical development studies in animals, products that are for animal use. So we’re basically running a study from start to finish, making sure that it runs according to timelines and making sure that the data is of good quality and at the end of it can be used in a submission for the final product.

0.00.30 When I was at school I was quite interested in obviously the science side of things. I also enjoyed art and keyboarding and English and basically I was looking to get the qualifications to become a Veterinary Nurse and you just needed a certain level qualification in the basics, English, maths and science. So when I left school at 16 I had those qualifications and started in a practice as a sort of Cattery Assistant

0.01.00 with the intention that if a trainee veterinary position came up then I could take that, which it did. It was, obviously like I said quite young at 16 but in those six months there wasn’t a great deal of support in the practice that I was in and the environment wasn’t the best that I thought it could have been. So unfortunately I left after about six months and at that point it was too late to go to a different practice. So I then had to find something different to do which is why I then went into an office environment.

0.01.30 I was always looking while I was working at the solicitors, I was always doing studying in the evening and I always wanted to try and progress where I was and the only option I had was looking at becoming a licensed conveyancer but the sort of prospects that position at the time weren’t great in that firm, they didn’t need that many of those, you know, they preferred qualified solicitors.

0.02.00 So on that decision I decided to look for an alternative administrative position and started looking at Pfizer which was closer to home. I think I just got to the point where I wasn’t learning anything new, there was no new challenges in the role at the solicitors. It was very mundane day to day work and I obviously need a challenge, need something to learn and wasn’t finding that. So when I started looking for the new sort of admin position, Pfizer was a good idea to me, because there’s so many different departments, so many different options.

0.02.30 And then once I got here, you know, seeing that it was veterinary medicine really kind of was something I was interested in and sort of pulled me back to the animal side of things. Yeah, I think looking back I would recommend now that I would have gone to university. I think at school because I was quite focused on what I wanted to do I didn’t necessarily look at all the options and that there were a lot more jobs to do with animals that I could have done had I have got a degree.

0.03.00 And I am actually now studying for a degree, so because it’s quite hard work to do it while working I think I would go back and do it full-time and sort of come in with that qualification. I’m studying for a degree at the moment with the Open University and at the end of it I hope to obtain a BSc so the good thing about the Open University is that you can do it in certain courses and you can gradually build up your points. You’re not fixed on a timeline and you can make sure that you can fit it in around work.

0.03.30 Outside of work I have two dogs which is my main hobby. They keep me quite busy. I’ve got two collies. One’s rough collie and Border collie and the other one’s pure Border collie. So a lot of time taking them out and spending time with them and because one’s a border collie I’ve started doing agility with him. So basically that takes up a lot of my time and then the other spare time I have is spent doing my degree.

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