Latest posts
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Justin Coffeen | Protocol Adherence in Research: Lessons From a Medical Unit
From 2017 to 2020, Justin Coffeen served in a United States Air Force medical unit. He enlisted after leaving a clinical practice in chiropractic medicine and was honorably discharged with a 100% permanent and total VA disability rating. He entered clinical research following his discharge. The connection between military protocol discipline and the demands of…
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Justin Coffeen | Why Clinicians Make Effective Clinical Research Coordinators
Clinical research coordination is sometimes described as an administrative role — managing schedules, collecting forms, entering data. That description misses the clinical judgment required to do it well. The most effective research coordinators bring something that administrative training does not provide: a working understanding of what is happening to the participant, not just what the…
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Justin Coffeen | From Orthopedics to Oncology: Moving Across Therapeutic Areas in Research
Justin Coffeen’s path through clinical research has taken him across three distinct therapeutic areas: orthopedics, oncology, and hepatology. Each requires a different clinical vocabulary, a different understanding of disease progression, and a different approach to participant management. Moving across them is a process of deliberate learning. Starting in Orthopedics Orthopedics was the natural entry point…
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Justin Coffeen | Working in a Chronic Pain Clinic and What It Taught Me About Patient Data
Between 2013 and 2017, Justin Coffeen worked in a medical chronic pain clinic alongside his chiropractic practice. His work there included instructing patients in physical rehabilitation and performing Functional Capacity Evaluations — structured assessments used to determine a patient’s ability to perform physical tasks, typically in the context of workers’ compensation or disability determinations. That…
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Justin Coffeen | The Role of Clear Communication in Multi-Site Clinical Research
Clinical research involves more people than a single coordinator and a single investigator. A multi-site trial may involve dozens of sites, each with their own teams, their own institutional contexts, and their own pressures. Communication across that structure is not incidental to research quality — it is one of the primary mechanisms through which research…
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Justin Coffeen | Teaching Anatomy and Physiology Alongside a Clinical Practice
From 2013 to 2016, Justin Coffeen taught anatomy, physiology, histology, and pathology at Life Chiropractic College West while maintaining an active clinical practice. The two roles ran in parallel — he was seeing patients and teaching the science behind patient care at the same time. That combination produced habits of explanation that remain part of…
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Justin Coffeen | What Military Service Taught Me About Working in Clinical Research
In 2017, Justin Coffeen left a clinical practice in chiropractic medicine and enlisted in the United States Air Force. He served in a medical unit until his honorable discharge in 2020. The transition from practice to military service to clinical research was not a series of separate careers. Each period shaped how he approaches the…
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Justin Coffeen | What GCP Compliance Actually Looks Like in Day-to-Day Research Work
Good Clinical Practice is a standard most people in research know by name. Fewer talk about what it looks like when it is actually working — not just on inspection day, but on the day-to-day level of source documentation, participant interactions, and protocol deviation reporting. Justin Coffeen, a clinical research professional based in Lakewood Ranch,…