I thought this was worth sharing….

The University of Leeds, Future Learn, National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network (NIHR CRN) and the CPD Certification Service have launched a free online course about how clinical research works.

And it’s going hot cakes with 8000 people having already signed up since its launch on 3nd November. That’s impressive.

I hope to do it this week. The link you need is here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/clinical-research/1

Here’s the full spiel from the website:

Everything we do in healthcare – every tablet that’s prescribed, every treatment that’s given and every test that’s performed – has to be first discovered and then thoroughly evaluated before it can be put into practice.

This discovery and evaluation is done in a variety of ways, which collectively we call “research.” And research that involves people, we call “clinical research.”

This free online course is all about this process of discovery and how it is used to improve healthcare. Together, we will look in detail at why we do research and how we do it. We will bring this to life through cases studies covering topics such as how research is helping to find new ways of treating and providing care for some of the major diseases including cancer and dementia. Through the course we will focus on the important ethical questions raised by clinical research and take a look into the future.

Over four weeks, we will speak to different members of a research team, including academics and clinicians from the National Institute of Health Research and the University of Leeds. We will also hear from the ordinary people who have participated in clinical research studies.

We’ll learn how they all make invaluable contributions to the process of discovery. By the end, you will have a much better understanding of not only the challenges of conducting clinical research, but also the enormous benefits that it can offer to modern healthcare.

ENDS

Enjoy!