Uni students have been known to take up a side hustle or second job as another way to make ends meet. As for myself, I took the road less traveled and signed up for a paid medical trial.

If you’re OK with sharing a ward with snorers, depriving yourself of smashed avos, urinating into a cup (and getting most of it on your hand), then you could probably survive a medical trial. If you can do all of these things 24/7 while being kept inside a facility for several days, then you can definitely handle a medical trial.

Not only do you receive financial compensation, but you’re also contributing to science by helping to find a new treatment to improve people’s lives.

Being Paid To Get Prodded And Chill Out

I’ll be honest, it was the money and the statement “you are aware that you’ll have to refrain from vigorous exercise for several days” that really sealed the deal for me. Being paid not to exercise has always been one of my life goals, so this was a dream come true.

Paid medical trials involve volunteers being part of an experimental trial for new pharmaceutical treatments. I went into my trial with full knowledge of everything that was involved in the testing as well as the possible side effects. Trials usually involve several overnight stays and follow up visits. I slept in a ward with several other volunteers: a few travellers, a couple migrating from South America, a couple who met on a lettuce farm and a Canadian who recently had food poisoning from a Woolloomooloo meat pie.

After being dosed with the treatment, we had to do daily blood, urine, neuropsychological and saliva tests. To make it easier for the nurses to extract blood, I was fitted with a cannula. The amount of inconvenience a small tube can cause is remarkable. My cannula affected how I washed my hair, how I reached for my phone and how I tried making coffee with the communal jar of mummified Nescafe. Cannulas suck (literally).

Sleeping Over Without The Home Comforts

For the most part, the trial was like a giant sleepover: Netflix marathons between tests, never getting out of my pyjamas, and midnight Uno games. But being confined from the real world for so long was quite confronting.

I missed the little things: the feeling of being held by someone, the feeling of sun on my skin, the ability to go wherever I wanted and do whatever I wanted. I constantly added something to the mental bucket list of what I would do when I got out: go to Nandos, stargaze, cuddle a cat and shave my legs. And it was comforting to know that everyone else in my trial group had their own post-trial bucket list: filling out visa applications, cuddling their dogs, going vegan, and “lots of sex.”

When I was released and allowed to go home, the feeling of sunlight on my skin was overwhelming. Wind blew against my face for the first time in days. After being cooped up for so long, it was liberating to reacquaint myself with everything that I had missed. Especially Nandos.

So, Was It Worth It?

Although there were moments where I would have killed for a decent cup of coffee (and human contact that was more than platonic), my trial experience was definitely worth it.

If you can afford to skip classes for a few days, medical trials aren’t a bad way to make some extra bucks (depending on how many extra heads you want to grow). All jokes aside, if you think you’ve got the patience for it, I would definitely suggest that you sign up.

At the very least, it’ll help your bank account stop screaming.

(Lead image: Parks and Recreation/NBC)