Biostatistician and SAS programming

[anil]

Whether biostatistician has to be 'expert' SAS programmer to prosper in clinical trials?
Anil

[Doc_Duke]

Not necessarily. We have Statistical Programmers who do the data cleaning and data preparation. We do expect our biostatisticians to be competent in SAS and the statistical analysis procedures.

Other organizations may have different expectations.

[deleted_user]

hi this is samba from hyderabad completed M.Sc Statistics with SAS.
Now iam hunting for SAS programmer job as a fresher. please provide me information.

[deleted_user]

well, You will be expected to know SAS programming as a biostatistician.
I often find that it is required on the job description.

[deleted_user]

Yes when it comes to work, biostatistician has to do the statistical analysis for the clinical trials it is recommended that biostatistician is an expert in the SAS programming along with the good statistical knowledge.

But when biostatistician work in the data management team they require only and only SAS expertize.

[anil]

Not necessarily.

There are very few competent biostatisticians who are expert in SAS programming.

Fundamentally Biostatistics and SAS programming are different (but related to some extent) branches in Science.
Statistician has to have through knowledge of statistics (MSc/ PhD).
SAS programmers can have any basic qualification.

Very good communication can solve all FDA problems as it is the 'Lead Statistician' who has to face FDA.

It is better to learn SAS programming at the earliest for statisticians working in clinical trials.

SAS programmers with basic knowledge statistics usually shine in clinical field as SAS carries more weightage than Statistics.
Anil

[Dave_SAS]

I think it's safe to say that all companies have different expectations of their biostatistics and SAS programming teams. I've worked with SAS programmers that didn't know anything about biostatistics. I've worked with SAS programmers with PhD's in biostatistics that preferred SAS programming. I've worked with biostatisticians that knew little about how to program in SAS.

Regardless of their formal training, both roles work together collaboratively to manipulate and analyze the clinical trials data.

Dave