IRB Approval Pending

Things have been kind of slow with this project since we submitted our IRB application to UM-IRBMED. We received approval from the Beijing University First Hospital IRB a few weeks ago, and so stuck in our UM app immediately. According to my intl epid prof, it depends on the situation whether internationl instition approval must come before UM approval. That was the case of ours, but in some instances, UM IRB can process contingent on foreign approval. It's all very grey.

It'll take about a month to go through, but is on the expedited track, I think. We need approval before we can collect any data. Even more important for me, we need to submit an IRB amendment to add my questions of interest to the questionnaire (QQ) as well. For the time being, I'm looking to create an amended version of the QQ to be ready once we get approval.