They've got the worst food here

[dangermouse]

At least, that was the case for the first week. Several people (including one of my roommates) had food poisoning due to staff negligence (a nurse left the halibut meal out too long before serving). It was bad.

I think it was around April that I did a "safety & tolerability" pill study for a, as of yet, FDA approved anti-depressant. Let''s see...what else I remember from my time there:

- It was a mixed gender area. Most rooms seemed to have around six occupants.

- Even though a shuttle service is provided from and to the nearest MTA train stop, I didn't find out about it till discharge day.

- There are two tvs - one, an old rear view projection set, and the other was a nice LCD flat screen. Both have a sign up sheet.

- While there is technically wifi, everybody - employees included - is on it, so the speed is akin to dial-up at the best of times.

- You could do your own laundry at any time before lights out, and before/after procedures, of course.

[mike]

Yeah I did my first study there a couple months ago, it was a small one for $750. All the staff that I dealt with were nice; I think that WCT is just a somewhat smaller operation than a lot of the other clinics in TX and the midwest and East coast. They do a lot of condition studies and not so many phase I. Food was not great but not horrible, I'm not that picky about food so if it's not really awful I won't care; on the other hand being careless about preparing fish or any other food that can easily make people sick is bad, whoever did that one should probably have been canned, unless they were just inadequately trained.

Yeah the accommodations are not that great, I can't comment on the wifi I didn't really use it much as I was not there very long. There wasn't any good spot to set your laptop so I ended up using it in bed the few times that I did.

I guess I'm not that hard on WCT because they are in CA and there is unfortunately not much available there. And I did manage to get into the first study I tried for there, which is the most important part: are you able to make reliable income there.

[lazyasat]

Anyone know if the wifi has improved? How bad really is the food? Do you have to eat it all? thanks.

[mike]

My current opinion, after doing about 6 or 7 studies there over the past couple years, is that their food is better than average for a study clinic. They give you a lot of salads, most lunches and dinners come with salad, the salad ingredients are always fresh and pretty good; the dressings are hit and miss.
Lunch is often rice with chicken or salmon or pasta, and some vegetables, or a sandwich, they do a croissant sandwich that is good. dinner is often fried chicken, sometimes you get barbecued ribs.
Breakfast is fine; scrambled eggs, english muffin sandwich, sometimes oatmeal.
They constantly give you melon chunks with your meals; unless there is pineapple or grapes, which are usually all right, the melon is inedible about 95% of the time.

The wifi seems to work fine there, I don't recall it cutting out or being too slow or anything.

One problem with their food is if you want your food hot (which applies to most of it), you have to heat it up yourself in a microwave. I really don't like what a microwave does to a lot of food, especially like the hashbrowns in the breakfast, it's not that great.

They give cookies for desert that are usually very good, but you never get milk.

[brat]

I had two good experiences here; 2017 & 2018 and met some great people.
It's smaller place than most, smaller groups, and most of the staff were awesome.
Good phlebotomy, considerate and discreet EKG procedures.
There are 4 bunks to a room, so you'll need to be OK with that. Not a lot of space to spread out--it's all used. Not much to do, so bring things to do.
WIFI is better now, but NOT secure by any means so curb your online shopping urges.
Food was better than other places It's catered now.
The only pain is, they keep the bathrooms locked, so you have to get a staff member to let you in.
They pay as promised, on time.