Trials designed in this way are also called randomized controlled trials. If you are assigned the standard intervention, you receive what experts view as the best treatment available in the realm of routine medical practice. If you are assigned the new intervention, you receive a treatment that some experts think may have significant advantages over the standard. The reason that the clinical trial has been initiated is that the superiority of one treatment over the other has not yet been firmly established. Clinical trials follow strict scientific guidelines.
Every trial has a chief investigator, who is usually a doctor.
The investigator prepares a study action plan, called a protocol. This plan explains what the trial will do, how, and why. Who is eligible to participate in the study. What study drugs participants will take. What medical tests they will have and how often.