It's the PI's Responsibility Posted on March 1, 2006 John B. Reid (bio) explains why he takes his subject recruitment seriously.

I take my subject recruitment very, very seriously. We celebrate. Everyday I'm talking to the people on the telephones and I treat it like I used to do clinical supervision therapy courses in graduate school. It's like, "Oh, tell me about that phone call where the person hung up on you." Then they say "Aw that was really a negative person. They made me feel bad." "No, no, no, no. What did you say? What did that person say? What did you say? What did that person say?" And I actually try to shape that person so that they don't get hung up on.

So I have them listen on the phone. Is the baby screaming in the background? Is there obviously a fight going on in the family? Then it might be time to say, "Hey this doesn't sound like a good time. Why don't I give you a buzz tomorrow?" If it looks like the person is tense, has a headache, or whatever the heck it is, you have a sense.

One of the bigger struggles I had with this particular LIFT program is it was in the context of a center grant and had a whole bunch of post-docs running around and being involved and all this kind of stuff, and being very proud of their theoretical contributions to this study. But every week we'd have a little happy hour on Friday where we'd sort of bond and what not and celebrate things. I was always celebrating some assessor who had gotten some family who didn't have a telephone, so they had to go and canvas the neighborhood and they finally ran them down. So we'd have a celebration, make a little plaque and all this kind of thing. And the post-docs are going, "Hey I got a paper published," and I go, "Well it's not as important right now as what we're doing." But again I could say that a bunch of times and I hope you really get it that I'm serious, because this problem solving at the micro-level is what's going to give you your 88% success.

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