The Critical Role Of The Medical Monitor

By Katie Dawson, inSeption Group

While a Medical Monitor’s primary role on a clinical study is to ensure the safety of study participants, they also play a key role in enabling optimal data integrity, creating a favorable profile of the research organization, and establishing a healthy team culture with collaborative functionality. The Medical Monitor interacts with most if not all functional roles on a study team and Medical Monitors with more experience often find themselves supporting and mentoring less-experienced colleagues.

The Medical Monitor must excel in a wide range of duties. To understand the added value that a Medical Monitor brings to a clinical study and the attributes that enable them to best serve a study team, it is important to understand the Medical Monitor’s responsibilities and the challenges they may encounter throughout a study.

Additionally, Medical Monitors often vary greatly in how they work because of diverse training experiences — for example, their aspirations, management styles, and expectations for projects. But experience and a detail-oriented mindset are essential qualifications.