Knowing What Is Yours

Part of Research Assistant (ASSIST) Training: The Edge of Your Own Authority.

About 2 minutes. Free, in your language, no account needed.

The most important competency in this role

Everything else in this course is a specific skill. This one is the judgment that sits behind all of them: knowing what you may decide and what you must hand over.

It is weighted most heavily for this role because an assistant who is excellent at every task and poor at this boundary is genuinely dangerous, while one who is average at the tasks and clear about the boundary is safe.

Three questions

Is it on the delegation log next to my name? If not, it is not yours, regardless of whether you know how.

Is it a medical judgment? Anything about symptoms, eligibility, whether to continue treatment, or what a result means belongs to a clinician.

Would I be deciding something about a participant? Process decisions are often yours. Decisions about a person are usually not.

Competence is not authorization

You may be perfectly capable of taking a blood pressure. If it is not delegated to you for this study, you still do not do it for this study.

This is the hardest part for people who came from clinical roles where they did these things daily. The restriction is not about your ability. It is about the study being able to show who did what.

Saying no is doing the job

"I am not signed off for that, let me find someone who is" is the correct answer and a completely professional one. Nobody competent will think less of you.

Doing a task you are not delegated for, to be helpful, creates a finding that has to be reported and can affect that participant's data.