Modified on March 5, 2026 to remove the “subscribe” option. This blog has been retired and replaced by the S.P.I.R.I.T. newsletter.
Authored by:
Gary Cramer
Reviewed by:
Tasha Mohseni
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, Compliance Rockstars, Clinical Research Professionals, Ethics Enthusiasts, and Investigators! 280+ blog subscribers and counting!
Welcome to the Subscriber Spotlight blog series!
For these posts, you can expect to see:
- An introduction of the valued subscriber,
- How long the individual has been a subscriber,
- Relevant social media and/or publications, and
- A brief description of what they would like to share with you all!
As a general reminder, any legal information discussed within this post should be discussed with your institution.
Let’s get started:
Who is Gary Cramer?
Gary Cramer has been a loyal subscriber since May 2025. Gary has been a Managing Editor with the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) since February 2006. If you’d like to learn more about ACRP, you can review the aforementioned link.
- To learn about some of the ACRP certifications, click here: Navigating Research and Regulatory Certifications: PRIM&R, SOCRA, ACRP, and HCCA Explained
- This was the only ACRP certification not included in the post above due to the article’s scope: Certified Principal Investigator (CPI) certification
- Lastly, if you’d like to connect with ACRP on social media please check out the links here:
Since Gary’s post provides background into how he got to where he is today, let’s just dive right in.
Let’s learn about Gary’s journey in his own words!
From Penn State to ACRP: Gary’s journey to becoming a Managing Editor
The path Iโve taken as a writer and editor from a general assignment reporter to clinical research was far from straightforward.
I was born and raised in western Pennsylvania. I majored in print journalism at Penn State in the dark ages of the 1980s. At the time when certain faculty members still felt that word processors made reporters lazy. So there I was, learning how to write for newspapers on an electric typewriter. Having the Associated Press style of doing things drummed into my brain. An internship in the universityโs main Public Information Office was the highlight of my studies, and an experience that set me up for a job there a few years later.
First, though, my 1987 baptism by fire on an actual newspaper in Lancaster, Pa., after graduation was my introduction to using computers for anything much more complicated than signing up for classes.
I quickly decided that:
- Reporting on municipal meetings, farming, and religion in a very rural area and
- Managing the weird afternoon, evening, and Sunday hours of working for a Monday-to-Saturday morning newspaper werenโt doing my health or social life any good.
About two years into that routine, I went back to my alma mater. This time as an employee.
I had a long stretch of public relations, donor communications, and specialty publications duties, mostly in different parts of the central University Relations division. Much of my time was spent boiling down findings from faculty and graduate student academic papers and transforming these findings into press releases in effort to promote the benefits of public university research. The skills I learned from that writing and editing style would prove to be valuable in my current job.
Eventually, after 15 years at Penn State, it was time for a change.
An interest in landscape architecture that had been growing in me from writing about the universityโs academic department led me first into some freelance writing in the Pittsburgh area. I eventually landed a staff position with the magazine of the nonprofit American Society of Landscape Architects in Washington, D.C. I moved to nearby Alexandria, Va., for that opportunity, but when it didnโt turn out to be the dream job I had hoped for. I quickly transitioned to working with another D.C.-area nonprofit, the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP), beginning in 2006. The associationโs four-color, print delivery, advertising-supported journalโfor members only and known as The Monitorโwas moving from quarterly to bimonthly publication. Its Editor-in-Chief needed help keeping it and an e-newsletter called ACRP Wire on schedule. Hence, the creation of this new position was filled by your very own (Gary Cramer).
ACRP, now nearing its 50th anniversary, is a membership-driven 501(c)(3) association devoted to providing education, certification, networking opportunities, and up-to-date resources for:
professionals across a wide range of duties, including:
- Study coordinators,
- Study monitors,
- Investigators,
- Data managers,
- Compliance officers,
- Patient recruiters, and
- Organizations such as
- Industry sponsors,
- Study sites,
- Contract research organizations,
- Patient advocacy groups,
- Institutional review boards, and many more.
Essentially, any folks or groups involved in the conduct and oversight of clinical trials.
Those of us on the ACRP staff donโt work on trialsโweโre here to help the people who do stay informed on:
- Best practices,
- Regulations,
- Ethical issues,
- Financial considerations, and
- Other things they need to know to design and manage these studies safely and effectively.
My own duties for ACRP, far from being medical in nature (which is good, since I have no relevant healthcare training), include:
- Writing and editing blogs and Q&As on a year-round basis about the areas of expertise of the associationโs 20,000-plus members and about its initiatives on their behalf;
- Editing background materials for our eLearning platform, webinars, white papers, and annual conferences;
- Acting as a roving reporter during the conferences; and
- Keeping our stakeholders in the know about important developments in the profession at large through our social media and other communications.
Originally, as an Assistant Editor, I reported to the associationโs former Editor-in-Chief position. Now, as Managing Editor, I report to the Director of Marketing.
Beyond blogging and outreach, I currently manage the production of the aforementioned journal, now known as the Clinical Researcher.
This journal features a mixture of scholarly articles and less formal contributed pieces. I also oversee its archives. Our budget for freelancers is limited. However, we make assignments on high-priority topics directly when more coverage is needed.
- Those who are interested in contributing short, unpaid blogs or journal columns/special features/opinion pieces under their own byline (or on behalf of clients) can pitch their ideas to me via e-mail
- Members and non-members alike are also welcome to submit longer journal articles of a more academic/complicated natureโthey can contact me first for feedback on their ideas or abstracts
- They can go directly to our submissions site and register themselves to start the review process
- These longer articles go through double-blind peer-review with volunteer editorial advisors who are subject matter experts
- More information about this option can be found at via our submission guidelines.
Itโs important to note that we do not publish scientific results from specific clinical trials. Our focus is on the day-to-day topics that matter the most to the professional workforce that keeps those trials running.
Iโm still a part of curating the contents and performing quality checks for our weekly e-newsletter, now called the ACRP beat.
This packages blurbs and links to:
- Our latest news and initiatives,
- Members-only online community topics,
- Chapter events,
- Certification deadlines,
- Industry job listings, and
- More for distribution to nearly 100,000 contacts in our database
Anyone who wishes can join our free mailing list to receive the e-newsletter and other ACRP communications. Finally, I produce a weekly internal e-newsletter featuring excerpts from media coverage that Iโve scoured from โthe outside world.โ This piece aids in keeping our staff and volunteer leadership up to speed on trends in the industry.
Clinical research is a rapidly evolving field, the importance of which to the overall healthcare industry and the general public often goes misunderstood and underappreciated, if not outright unrecognized.
Writers and editors on clinical research topics should cultivate the flexibility and drive to:
- Take on a wide variety of topics (be they geared toward the endeavorโs scientific, ethical, regulatory, economic, or workforce issues, etc.) within a single profession, and
- Work in organizations with life-enhancing and life-saving missions, where they will find a range of opportunities for jobs in the enterprise
They may land a position on or in the:
- Corporate or nonprofit entities,
- Public relations firms,
- Academic medical center settings, or
- National or independent media covering clinical trial activities from many different angles
My best advice for wordsmiths who wish to explore clinical researchโrelated careers ties into that word I used earlier, โflexibility.”
Thriving in any kind of work in communications often depends on oneโs ability to adapt to interpreting topics for others – sometimes in areas in which you may initially have little or no experience. Also, rarely does anyone in this kind of job have the luxury of being devoted solely to a lone publication, theme, or type of duty for very long. Further, head-spinning changes in the technologies and formats involved in reaching audiences have taken me from:
- Using those electric typewriters and clunky desktop computers for the printed and mailed products of earlier decades spent in traditional office settings,
- To using laptops for online-only publications as I near the fifth anniversary of working remotely for ACRP back in my home state and only getting to see my colleagues face-to-face at our conferences once a year
As I mentioned at the beginning, how I got to where I am wasnโt the most direct route.
Some detours along the way didnโt go as planned. It reminds me of something weโve heard often from our members:
Clinical research is a profession that many of them โfell intoโ instead of being their plan all along.
Thatโs certainly an accurate assessment of how I found my role in the field. Still and all, I wouldnโt have it any other way.
I hope you all enjoyed learning about Gary’s journey to ACRP as well as ways to get involved with ACRP! For posts that describe a subscriber’s journey or their experiences, a poll will NOT be included.
However, I would still love to hear what you all think! Please feel free to drop a comment below.
Any questions left for Gary will be communicated to him for comment!
