It will be 13 years this June since I have left a job teaching histology at the University of Belgrade to start internal medicine residency in Baltimore. And lo and behold, I am back teaching, sort of.
UMBC — University of Maryland Baltimore County to friends — is starting a graduate course on clinical trials. I will be helping out Wilson Bryan, the recently retired Director of FDA’s OTAT (aka “head of cell and gene therapy”), to design and run it. Maybe even do a lecture or two. The two of us talked briefly about the new course on a UMBC podcast, This is also where I learned what my title would be. Graduate instructor, apparently. The amount of paperwork required was not commensurate with the title. Oh my, all that docusigning… which is out today.
The course will be an in-person/on-line hybrid, so even those not in the area — and it will be held at UMBC’s Shady Grove campus — may join this coming September. From what I understand, giving people who are not physicians the opportunity to learn about designing, running, and interpreting clinical trials is a rarity, so it will be interesting to see who shows up and where the discussion leads us.
So, 13 years… Different university, different subject matter, but how much could things have changed since then anyway?