This morning I woke up and went and had my blood drawn for a research study here at the medical center. I am acting as a healthy control that is looking into Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Ulcerative Colitis and Chron's disease). They just needed a few vials of the blood. I have great veins - I'm sure some of my classmates are looking forward to practicing on me for blood draws and IV's when clinical skills week rolls around. I had to be stuck twice because my first vein didn't give enough blood to fill all the needed tubes. It's probably because I was somewhat dehydrated at 7:30 this morning. I could have stopped there and still made my money, but I let them stick my other arm and finished the job! If I'm going to be a lab rat - I at least want to be a good one.
This is what they do at the medical center if you need young healthy control subjects. There is a huge pool of poor in debt medical students at your finger tips - willing to do just about anything to make an extra buck. There are tons of studies going on, but obviously the line must be drawn somewhere & you have to find the studies. Some will pay big bucks.
I called on a study once that wanted to perform a spinal tap on healthy patients for I don't remember what. I was really curious to see how much they would pay - I'm thinking in my head I wouldn't do this for much less than a few hundred bucks and I still probably wouldn't do it. When I called and asked the lady on the phone said the compensation was $50!!!! I'm thinking you're crazy!
So there ya go - medical student/ lab rat. Awesome!
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