Location: Wilmington, DE; US Gold, AA Gold HH Gold
Posts: 48
I was scheduled to go on Jan. 4. Having not heard anything since being told I passed my December 8 overnight study, I called CliniLabs on December 30. I was able to leave a voice mail and heard back that my overnight test results were sent in for review and my respiration rate was outside the tolerances they were looking for. Bottom line - I was not included on the 1/4 trip. The lady said she was sorry nobody bothered to call and tell me that I had been excluded. She said I would be compensated for the 2 visits I made to NY.
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: NYC
Posts: 29,405
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveM
I was scheduled to go on Jan. 4. Having not heard anything since being told I passed my December 8 overnight study, I called CliniLabs on December 30. I was able to leave a voice mail and heard back that my overnight test results were sent in for review and my respiration rate was outside the tolerances they were looking for. Bottom line - I was not included on the 1/4 trip. The lady said she was sorry nobody bothered to call and tell me that I had been excluded. She said I would be compensated for the 2 visits I made to NY.
Sorry to hear that you won't make the 1/4 trip. I've been confirmed on the trip and will be leaving on Sunday.
It looks like you only get $425 comp for your two days of participation, according to the pay scale in the documentation. Not horrible, but not great either considering you had to schlep up to NYC.
Location: Wilmington, DE; US Gold, AA Gold HH Gold
Posts: 48
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbm12
Sorry to hear that you won't make the 1/4 trip. I've been confirmed on the trip and will be leaving on Sunday.
It looks like you only get $425 comp for your two days of participation, according to the pay scale in the documentation. Not horrible, but not great either considering you had to schlep up to NYC.
Sorry to hear that you won't make the 1/4 trip. I've been confirmed on the trip and will be leaving on Sunday.
It looks like you only get $425 comp for your two days of participation, according to the pay scale in the documentation. Not horrible, but not great either considering you had to schlep up to NYC.
Where were you on 1/4? I was there too. I wish I had known for sure you were going to be there we could have met. I thought you had been cancelled out.
I am happy you got to go, but right now I am so steamed I could spit nails.
I breezed through the whole process starting back in Nov. with flying colors. I was scheduled for Jan 4 trip, got picked up by the car service at 7:15 am, rearranged my life and then 1/2 hour before you all were getting in the vans leaving for Islip airport I am told I fell outside their high blood pressure parameters. A $2k loss for me
Bugs me even more since I have a great doctor and he has never mentioned high blood pressure. Even had some minor surgery last October. Neither my post op doctor nor my surgeon mentioned anything about it. I think they were way off on the high blood evaluation. I was so stunned - didn't know what to do the rest of the day!
I understand alternate AIG took my place - I am happy for him/her too
If you are still in France when you read this you tell AIG he needs to split his earnings with me If it was not for my so-called high blood pressure he/she would not be there.
I did the study back in mid-September out or ATL. I was in the first group from ATL. Apparently because we complained so much about the food it got better for everyone else....your welcome The food was bread and water for breakfast (stale bread as it was from the day before); the last two days they bought us some cereal...lunch and dinner was crappy hospital food. One night it was disgusting fish; another it was boiled potatoes
It was cool being the first group...we only had 4 people in our group...being in a G5 with only 4 (5 counting our travel coordinator) was cool.
I skimmed the posts so the person asking about the laptop...you cannot bring it...but they have a 15 year old computer you can use...they moved it into the TV room (and put a password) on it after my group was using it...ALOT. It was in there office area.
I was able to hold on to my BB, but it did not work there...still I could use it to take pictures...
After the 2nd day most of us ditched our ugly purple scrubs and just wore our cloths...
The interpreters were nice (girl ones were hotties)...everyone was nice...
I will try and post a link to pics that one of the girls uploaded...
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: NYC
Posts: 29,405
I didn't realize that was you. I was, indeed, there on 1/4 and saw you as you were getting put back in your car to go home. How many times did they take your BP, and do you know what readings they got for you on it?
I actually failed the BP check the first time they checked me and then 10 minutes later calmed down from whatever was freaking me out and was back to normal.
The trip was pretty good, though there were definitely some interesting things about it. For one thing, there was no immigration control either entering or leaving France. The flight was pretty nice, though a G IV with 13 people plus a FA on the plane was pretty crowded. It was a comfortable flight, but that many people in there wasn't awesome.
AIK is actually who replaced you, not AIG, but that is probably of little importance to you.
The schedule in France was basically 3 more days of the same crud we did in NYC, with the naps and the overnight sleeping. The food was absolutely miserable for 4 of the 6 meals and passable for the other 2. The breakfasts were just corn flakes and bread.
And I still cannot figure out how the ability to nap is a reasonable measure of efficacy of the drug. They didn't measure anything related to cognitive function or coherence. That just seems wrong to me.
Finally, we had one guy on the trip that was just a bad apple. He almost was denied boarding for the return flight. We managed to work that out and he was no trouble for the flight home, but it was touch and go at about T-12h from departure.
Oh, and I ripped the coordinator on the NY side of things a new one last night for their complete and total incompetence in actually getting answers correctly to the participants. Situations like DaveM's where folks were not actually told that they never passed the initial screening were not isolated at all.
sbm12,
Yes my BP got pretty high once they told me it may keep me from going. I am pretty sure it was a fluke of nervousness or they didn't know how to operate the machine. Which would fit in well with your thought on the incompetence. I attribute some of it to the fact that the laid off a bunch of people and they are understaffed. The girl 'coordinator' was pretty young and little inexperienced dealing with pressure and people.
I think I know who the bad apple was; there was one passenger that was acting weird with the doctor and coordinator about the time I was getting my bad news. Oh well.
I got to be honest - everytime I miss a flight, like this one, I think someone is looking out for me and the plane will crash or some other disaster. So pretty happy you all had nothing bad happen.
Do you know if there are any other trips scheduled?
Location: Wilmington, DE; US Gold, AA Gold HH Gold
Posts: 48
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbm12
Oh, and I ripped the coordinator on the NY side of things a new one last night for their complete and total incompetence in actually getting answers correctly to the participants. Situations like DaveM's where folks were not actually told that they never passed the initial screening were not isolated at all.
I got the sense that this was unfortunately not isolated. I need to get on them to send me the check for my 2 NYC visits. The lady told me to be prepared to call them again when I haven't heard from them in a week (which I haven't). C'est la vie.
sbm12,
Yes my BP got pretty high once they told me it may keep me from going. I am pretty sure it was a fluke of nervousness or they didn't know how to operate the machine. Which would fit in well with your thought on the incompetence. I attribute some of it to the fact that the laid off a bunch of people and they are understaffed. The girl 'coordinator' was pretty young and little inexperienced dealing with pressure and people.
I think I know who the bad apple was; there was one passenger that was acting weird with the doctor and coordinator about the time I was getting my bad news. Oh well.
I got to be honest - everytime I miss a flight, like this one, I think someone is looking out for me and the plane will crash or some other disaster. So pretty happy you all had nothing bad happen.
Do you know if there are any other trips scheduled?
Curtdiss,
Awesome pictures. Thanks for sharing!
no problem
My BP is always alittle high due to being slightly overweight and genetics...I thought it was going to exclude me from the study but on each eval that would take my BP and it would be slightly elevated, they would let me sit or lay quietly for a while (10 or 15 minutes) and take it again. The whole time in France it was elevated and I don't think I got the drug because I feel asleep all but once or twice during the naps. I didn't really care if it was elevated while I was in France since they would have to pay me anyway. I think it was up due to the difficult sleeping with all those things on my head and the lousy food.
The eval done when just arriving back it was high. The eval 7 days later it was a little high and they let me sit for a few minutes and then it was ok...
I almost got excluded for an odd EKG reading (Wolf Parkinson Syndrome ?) ...I had to pay to go to a DR and have a new EKG done that showed there was no problem. I think it was my hairy chest...I shaved it for the second EKG and all was fine...The sleep lab accepted the new EKG and all was good.
I need to get on them to send me the check for my 2 NYC visits.
I've read in this thread some conflicting information on whether or not the travel costs for getting to NYC for the initial visits are covered. Is the compensation you're waiting for simply for your time, or do they cover travel costs for participants to fly to NYC?
Moderator: Travel Technology, Travel Photography and JetBlue
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: NYC
Posts: 29,405
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curtdiss
I did the study back in mid-September out or ATL. I was in the first group from ATL. Apparently because we complained so much about the food it got better for everyone else....your welcome The food was bread and water for breakfast (stale bread as it was from the day before); the last two days they bought us some cereal...lunch and dinner was crappy hospital food. One night it was disgusting fish; another it was boiled potatoes
It was cool being the first group...we only had 4 people in our group...being in a G5 with only 4 (5 counting our travel coordinator) was cool.
I skimmed the posts so the person asking about the laptop...you cannot bring it...but they have a 15 year old computer you can use...they moved it into the TV room (and put a password) on it after my group was using it...ALOT. It was in there office area.
I was able to hold on to my BB, but it did not work there...still I could use it to take pictures...
The earlier groups taking photos actually got the study in a lot of trouble and they banned just about everything other than an MP3 player from making the trip. No laptops, no phones, no BBs, etc. The computer isn't quite 15 years old, but it is close, with 128MB of RAM and Windows NT4 on it. That was pretty painful. We also were not allowed outside at all. It was pretty cold, but a breath of fresh air would've been nice. I actually stuck my head out the window a couple times for that reason.
The food actually didn't get any better. It was the same as you describe, with bread and corn flakes for breakfast (at 10am) and then lunch as noon and dinner at 7p. Bad fish, beef, pork, etc. were the norm, though the potatoes were always edible to some extent. Oh, and we had to wash our own dishes in the morning if we wanted clean bowls for cereal as the old stuff from the night before was still in the dining area when we showed up for breakfast. That was pretty disgusting.
I've read in this thread some conflicting information on whether or not the travel costs for getting to NYC for the initial visits are covered. Is the compensation you're waiting for simply for your time, or do they cover travel costs for participants to fly to NYC?
Travel costs are not covered. There is compensation for the first two days' participation at $75 and $350, respectively.
Moderator: Travel Technology, Travel Photography and JetBlue
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: NYC
Posts: 29,405
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curtdiss
Why is my 1st post not showing up
Because it was one of your very first posts and it has a link in it. That is a common characteristic of a spammers so the system blocks them for moderation.
