industry Archives - NonClinical Physicians

First Consider The Most Popular Full-Time Careers

John Jurica — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:06:03 +0000

Proven Options for Leveling Up – 368

This week John spends a few minutes sharing his thoughts on one of three popular full-time careers when preparing to “level up.”

Today John delves into the idea of “leveling up”- a journey of self-improvement that can lead you to a more satisfying and financially rewarding career. Drawing inspiration from professional athletes and attorneys he shares how to take stock of your strengths, identify areas for growth, and set new goals to help you become the best version of yourself.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career you love. To learn more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

For Podcast Listeners

John hosts a short Weekly Q&A Session addressing any topic related to physician careers and leadership. Each discussion is now posted for you to review and apply. Sometimes all it takes is one insight to take you to the next level of your career. Check out the Weekly Q&A and join us for only $5.00 per month.
If you want access to dozens of lessons dedicated to nonclinical and unconventional clinical careers, you should join the Nonclinical Career Academy MemberClub. For a small monthly fee, you can access the Weekly Q&A Sessions AND as many lessons and courses as you wish. Click the link to check it out, and use the Coupon Code “FIRSTMONTHFIVE” to get your first month for only $5.00.
The 2024 Nonclinical Summit is over. But you can access all the fantastic lectures from our nationally recognized speakers, including Dr. Dike Drummond, Dr. Nneka Unachukwu, Dr. Gretchen Green, and Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Go to Nonclinical Summit and enter Coupon Code “30-OFF” for a $30 discount.

Three Most Popular Full-time Careers for Physicians Seeking a Change

Suppose you’re a physician considering a career shift. In that case, John highlights three nonclinical roles that might be perfect for you: hospital Chief Medical Officer (CMO), pharma Medical Science Liaison (MSL), and insurance company Utilization Management (UM) Medical Director. These roles offer improved work-life balance, competitive pay, and full-time opportunities with major organizations. John describes each popular full-time career and how you can smoothly transition.

Your Network is Your Net Worth: Resources to Help You Succeed

Transitioning to a new career isn’t just about what you know, it’s also about who you know. In this section, Dr. John reminds us of the importance of building a strong professional network and leveraging resources like LinkedIn, the American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL), and the MSL Society. He also recommends joining online communities like the Remote Careers for Physicians Facebook group, where you can connect with others who’ve made similar transitions and get advice on your next steps.

Summary

Sometimes it makes sense to level up your career to one that offers better pay and work-life balance. The three options described today have demonstrated that they generally meet those goals. If you're looking for full-time employment in a well-established industry John advises you to consider one of these popular options.

Links for Today's Episode:

How to Become CMO in a Year – 052
4 Things the CMO Should Never Say to the CEO – 251
Hospital Management Career Bundle Tactics to Quickly Prepare for a Hospital Management Job
Find Your Great First Nonclinical MSL Job
Complete the Journey to Your First Fabulous MSL Job – 277
Build a Rewarding Career as an MSL – Use Coupon Code HALFOFF to purchase for only $198
How To Secure Your First Utilization Management Job
The Truth About Medical Specialists and UM Jobs
American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL)
Remote Careers for Physicians Facebook Group
MSL Society
Check out the 2024 Nonclinical Career Summit to learn about MORE career options.

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Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 368

First Consider the Most Popular Full-Time Careers

John: Okay, nonclinical nation, many of you are ready to make a change in your professional life. It may be because you're frustrated and your work-life balance is shot, or maybe it's just because you're ready to level up.

What do I mean by leveling up? Well, leveling up can be described as a process of self-development or to become a better version of yourself. This can include identifying weaknesses and strengths, setting goals, replacing old habits with new habits, focus on success, and possibly moving to a career that's more satisfying and financially rewarding.

As I was thinking about this concept, I was trying to get examples, and I have two examples that really come to mind.

The first one is professional athletes. Some professional athletes are forced to retire. Some just reach their peak and decide after they've done everything they want to do, they just retire, but they have a lot of notoriety and they have hopefully saved up some money. And again, it's kind of parallel to what physicians can do.

I think of examples like those of Magic Johnson's business ventures in broadcasting, music, film, and finance, or John Elway's investments in dealerships in the Denver area that he said later sold off, and then him investing in the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League in 2002. And of course, many successful athletes have finished their careers as athletes, and then leveled up to do something else very powerful.

Now, those might seem like outliers. Maybe those are just a select few, but I also think of attorneys. There are many attorneys who never practice, or let's say they finish law school, they pass their bar, and they do work for a while in the industry, in law, doing something, but then they find that they can take everything they've learned in law school and with their early experiences as an attorney and segue into another career, which they level up.

You can look around and see a lot of attorneys working in C suite of various companies, not actually practicing law, but applying what they learned as leaders, as researchers, as presenters, and they apply to the new job. You're an attorney and you have a background in healthcare law, well, you can do that with a big firm, or you can actually go and become part of a team to run a healthcare organization, and obviously all those skills will come in handy.

I interviewed somebody who was trained as an attorney. He, for a little while, was helping physicians with their contract negotiations as an attorney. What he did was leverage that to become more of an agent. He helps physicians negotiate better contracts as an agent, but not as an attorney. In fact, he still has attorneys review the contracts. That's a way to level up.

I think the physicians can do the same thing. Healthcare is the largest industry in the United States, and there are positions for physicians in every major aspect of healthcare. Maybe it's natural to think after a few years of being in the trenches and seeing patients, at some point it gets old, and now you look for the next challenge, and that's what we call leveling up.

And so, I want to talk about three of the positions that you should consider, particularly if you're in a big hurry. Now, you can spend six, 12, 18 months researching all of the possible nonclinical careers out there, but if you're looking for a particular type of career that I'll mention in a minute, then maybe you should select from one of the three most commonly pursued careers and go from there, and that's what I'm going to talk about today, the pros, the cons, some of the tactics for doing this, and so forth. They definitely provide a better lifestyle, and they pay well, and so I thought I would focus on those today.

Those careers are those of a chief medical officer at a hospital or health system, medical science liaison, or UM medical director. Now, they're all full-time jobs. We're not going to mess around with starting a new business or getting a part-time job and then segwaying to maybe looking for two or three different part-time jobs that you can patch together like I've talked about before, but these are full-time jobs. They involve employment with a large organization. They have a lot of the usual benefits that only large organizations provide, and they're really seen by physicians as very, very viable options. And so, I thought, "Well, if I can provide examples of these three and tell you a little bit about each of them, maybe that can kind of jumpstart your process of leveling up."

All right, I have definitely interviewed multiple physicians doing all of these jobs. I personally have been a chief medical officer, know many other chief medical officers and other senior executives in hospitals that are physicians. I've interviewed many medical science liaisons, which represents the pharma industry. And then the third is, again, one of the most common, and maybe somewhat underappreciated, and that's being a medical director for a health insurance company, or you might call them a healthcare payer, one of the big ones. That's what I want to talk about today.

Let's talk about the chief medical officer first. What about that? How do we do that? And one of the things that comes up, because maybe I'm comparing these three directly, and it's a little bit, I wouldn't say disingenuous, but it's not correct to, let's say, talk about a new MSL and someone who's becoming a new CMO. CMO is a pretty high-level position. Now, I was going to talk about medical directors in the hospital setting, and it is the stepping stone to becoming a CMO. Both those jobs pay well, they have great benefits, and the lifestyle is much better than, let's say, a practicing physician as an anesthesiologist or an ER doctor in the hospital.

But most medical directors that work in the hospital setting are medical directors for a service line, which means they're usually practicing at least half-time as well. I wouldn't want to call that medical director position as a full-time position. Now, there are some full-time medical director positions. If you're in a large enough hospital and you can be a medical director for quality improvement or for informatics or for utilization management or, let's say, even coding and documentation, those can all be full-time jobs. They can pay well. You can replace your clinical salary for sure. And they do serve as a stepping stone, though, to the ultimate hospital environment job, which would be that of a chief medical officer or one of the other senior positions like chief medical information officer or chief quality officer, something like that.

Now, as far as getting from your medical director role up to the CMO role, which is that last step before, but you could eventually become a COO or even a CEO of a hospital. But in focusing on the CMO role, you're going to do some of these things that we will talk about with all three positions, really.

Maybe a little different here. You might want to get an executive coach or mentor. You definitely want to join LinkedIn because you're going to do a lot of your networking and looking for jobs on LinkedIn if you don't have a way to segue up to the current institution where you're already working.

One of the resources is the AAPL, which is the American Association for Physician Leadership, which is at physicianleaders.org. They have a bunch of books. There's a bunch of other books you can look at for healthcare finances and leadership and so forth.

And the question with that job is, "Does it require relocation?" If you're in a large metropolitan area, there's probably multiple systems where you could look for a job, but it's not uncommon to be able to work your way up an institution's hierarchy, work as a medical director, take on more responsibility over time while you gradually decrease your practice. And ultimately, while you might keep your license, you reach a point where you really don't need a license.

I would maintain it only because sometimes when you're looking to change to a CMO role at another organization, they want you to have the license. I think sometimes that's because they might be using your license for some things, having to do with the pharmacy or covering for ordering drugs for different units. But ultimately, you won't really need to have that license because you're no longer seeing patients. Although as a CMO, you can continue to see patients once a week or every other week or so if you want to continue to do that.

But it's one of those jobs that you should think of right off the bat if you're in a position that enables you to pursue that kind of job. It's not right for everybody. If you're a dermatologist working in an outpatient setting or if you've never had privileges at a hospital, it makes it difficult to start that job search from nothing as opposed to being one of these people in the hospital that are there all the time, the emergency physicians, anesthesiologists and various surgeons and so forth. Geriatricians and hospitalists are typical, very common to move up that path. So that's the first one.

With that, I think I'll move on to the next one, which is medical science liaison. We've talked about this before. It's a very common and attractive position. It really doesn't require any special background. I think it's helpful if you have experience in working with particular drugs or drug classes. It's kind of whatever's popular at the time. Oncologists typically can get into pharma very easily. They'll often go into more of the clinical research side of things, but as an oncologist, it would be very easy to become an MSL, but also pretty much anyone who's using certain drugs and classes of drugs, whether it's cardiology, even gynecologists and family physicians, internists for sure. There's a big push in GI drugs lately. So if you were doing GI work and wanted to transition to this role, it'd probably be fairly easily.

And there are even positions for people that don't have a residency and haven't been in practice, but we're really focusing on those who have been in practice and want to level up to something new with a better lifestyle, but actually paying equal to or more in the long run than what you're doing now. And as I said, we're going to focus on some of those drugs to help convince our new employer.

As far as resources to try and move into this role, you want to commiserate with others that are doing it, you want to go on LinkedIn, you want to have a great profile. This applies to all three. Great LinkedIn profile, networking on LinkedIn, engage with peers. You can join the MSL Society, which the link there is themsls.org. They have a lot in there for people who are already medical science liaisons, but you can imagine just taking a few entry-level courses and reading about becoming an MSL and being an MSL and exceeding and excelling as an MSL would be very helpful. And in addition, you'll learn the language that they speak.

And when you're doing interviews and submitting your resume, you want to sprinkle those and your LinkedIn profile with the vernacular that's not used outside of the pharma industry. And some of it's not even used by anyone other than medical science liaisons. I do also mention the Contract Research Organization, CRO, because you can work directly for a pharmaceutical company as an MSL, but a lot of MSLs work for contract research organizations.

A CRO has different names, it could be the Contract Research Organization, it could be Contract Resource Organization, but they provide resources to pharma companies for those things that they don't want to keep hiring for. And sometimes it's MSLs, it can be other things, it could be the components that actually provide the studies, that monitor the studies and so forth.

You oftentimes will find that CROs are hiring medical science liaisons a little quicker than the pharmaceutical companies go. And all of these things are dependent on what is going on in the industry, how much demand there is based on what new drugs are being released by various companies. And it's at that point of release that MSLs get heavily involved. It's an educational role, it's not a marketing or sales role.

I remember once talking to a guest who's a pediatrician and she didn't think there was any way she could be employed by a pharma company, but because of all the experience she had with vaccines, they happened to be looking for somebody that had that experience and she was able to get a job. And I think initially she was employed by a CRO and then later moved up to a full-time position either with the CRO or with the pharma company itself. That's the second one I wanted to mention today. Don't forget to look at the MSL Society to get some ideas on how to approach that goal.

The last one I want to talk about today, again, one of the big three, is working as a medical director for a utilization management company, working for a large payer. Again, that doesn't require any special background. If you've done chart reviews before in the hospital setting, particularly maybe you've been a physician advisor for UM in the hospital, that might help. All the big insurance companies hire these people, but they also sometimes farm this out to something called an IRO, which is an independent review organization.

And so, many people when they're starting out and becoming a UM or a benefits management medical director, they'll apply at an IRO first and they'll find a job part-time. This is the one that's a little easier to do, kind of the pilots where you're still doing your old job. You're doing some part-time chart reviews for an IRO and then some IROs will hire you full-time.

One of my colleagues really, he hasn't been a guest on the podcast yet. I'm probably going to have him on someday, but he was a surgeon and he just wanted to spend more time with his kids. And he thought, "Well, I don't know. I make a fair amount of money as a surgeon but I'm not having any time with my kids. I'm not spending enough time with my kids. They're growing up, I'm missing on that." And he said, "I'm going to level up to one of these different careers." And so, he did start working as a medical director for an independent review organization and he actually really enjoys it. In addition to doing general sort of chart review work, he's also serving as a resource for those surgical cases. So you can always get that. Even if you're a specialist, sometimes they have special roles for you. One of my other guests or the other one that was a guest as opposed to this first example, he was an invasive cardiologist for pediatrics.

And yeah, he's been working at a health system or a health insurer rather for gosh, at least five or six years now since I interviewed him. And he's very happy and he actually helps other people do that. The resources for that, besides looking around for IROs, if you want a list of some of the IROs, they're basically the ones that are certified. You can go to NAIRO, which is the National Association of IROs at nairo.org/members. You'll get a list of all the NAIRO members and you can go look at their websites to see if they're hiring the type of medical director that you might be looking at. And again, these can be for part-time positions to get you started, to get you exposed.

You can also go to Facebook and look for the Remote Careers for Physicians Facebook group. It's got at least 10,000 members now. It's pretty big group. And everybody in there is kind of talking about working as a payer or a health insurer UM medical director and other associated types of positions.

All the big insurance companies definitely will hire these people as well. Whether we're talking about Cigna or Centene or several others, any of the big ones, they all have them. But they also outsource some of the work to the IROs. Again, I will remind you that for all these positions, it's important to be on LinkedIn. It's important to have a complete profile. It's important to use LinkedIn and sometimes Doximity to locate your colleagues and network with them. See if some of them are already doing one of these jobs.

Like I said, maybe it's time to level up and this is how you can get started. And if one of these three positions sounds right for you, then you can just jump in now and start working on it and see what you think.

The other thing I would say is besides what I've already mentioned in terms of the benefits is they have great benefit packages in most of these places. You've got health insurance, disability insurance, retirement plans, four to six weeks of paid time off. And some of them will even give physicians deferred compensation benefits. So that can be nice for your retirement planning.

Well, I guess that's it for today's discussion. Thousands of physicians literally just in the last few years have found happiness in each of these three careers. They all offer full-time salaries, generally good benefits, and there are resources that can help you get started. Just check out those resources and get going. And if you have any questions, you can always contact me.

If you want to access everything that I've talked about today easily, you can go to the show notes. You'll also get a link to the podcast episode. You'll get related links, several related links actually and the transcript. And you can find all that at nonclinicalphysicians.com/popular-full-time-careers.

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The post First Consider The Most Popular Full-Time Careers appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Priceless Advice From an Expert in The BioPharma Industry

John Jurica — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 12:18:05 +0000

Interview with Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley – 364

This week you will hear priceless advice from an expert in biopharma, Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley. She also brings her experience as a physician career coach and mentor to bear during our conversation.

Over the past five years, Michelle has made significant strides in her biotech career. And she offers valuable insights and advice for physicians looking to transition into the industry.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

For Podcast Listeners

John hosts a short Weekly Q&A Session addressing any topic related to physician careers and leadership. Each discussion is now posted for you to review and apply. Sometimes all it takes is one insight to take you to the next level of your career. Check out the Weekly Q&A and join us for only $5.00 per month.
If you want access to dozens of lessons dedicated to nonclinical and unconventional clinical careers, you should join the Nonclinical Career Academy MemberClub. For a small monthly fee, you can access the Weekly Q&A Sessions AND as many lessons and courses as you wish. Click the link to check it out, and use the Coupon Code “FIRSTMONTHFIVE” to get your first month for only $5.00.
The 2024 Nonclinical Summit is over. But you can access all the fantastic lectures from our nationally recognized speakers, including Dr. Dike Drummond, Dr. Nneka Unachukwu, Dr. Gretchen Green, and Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Go to Nonclinical Summit and enter Coupon Code “30-OFF” for a $30 discount.

The Power of Relationships in Career Transitions

Michelle highlights the critical role of networking in securing nonclinical roles. “These jobs are all about relationships. Often, you end up getting a job not because you’re the best fit, but because you know someone,” she explains.

She recommends using platforms like LinkedIn and Doximity to connect with industry professionals and seek advice and opportunities.

Priceless Advice from an Expert

When pursuing a job in the biopharma sector, Michelle advises against additional certifications or degrees as the first step. Instead, she suggests focusing on building transferable skills and relationships within the industry. “You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get a job. You likely already have the knowledge and skills needed,” she assures.

She also advises us to explore the Medical Affairs Professional Society for useful advice and information.

Encouragement for Aspiring Biopharma Professionals

Don’t lose confidence in yourself. We all face rejection and setbacks, but remember, you are good enough for these roles. Keep believing in yourself and stay persistent. – Michelle Mudge-Riley

Summary

To connect with Dr. Mudge-Riley and learn from her experiences, you can find her on LinkedIn, another resource for priceless advice from an expert. She also recommends checking out the Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) as a fantastic resource for networking and professional growth in the medical affairs field.

Links for Today's Episode:

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 364

Priceless Advice From An Expert In The BioPharma Industry

- Interview with Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley

John: I'm so happy to welcome today's guest back to the podcast. She's been on the podcast before, but it has been quite a while. She's known as an expert in career transition through coaching and live events, but really she has become an expert in biopharma because she's been working in biopharma and doing some pretty interesting things. I'm really happy to welcome Michelle Mudge-Riley here to the podcast. Hi, Michelle.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Hi, John. So nice to be back with you again.

John: It's great to see you. We were just reminiscing before we started our interview here, but why don't you fill us in a little bit with the highlights of what has transpired in the last five years, let's say, because that's almost as long as it's been since we spoke on the podcast.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Sure. Sounds good. And it really is unbelievable that it's been five years. I know it seems a long time when you're looking at it day to day, but there's so many things you look back and you think, wow, it's been five years or it's been 10 years or it's been years. And yeah, this is a perfect example of that. Yeah, I was the doctor's doctor known as that probably 10, 8 years ago, as I had a thriving business as a career transition coach for physicians. I ran an online and in-person conference. And I also worked for a small boutique consulting company at the time, which enabled me to do a lot of these extra things on the side.

And in my role in that consulting company, I was the medical director for small, medium and large biotech companies. I really enjoyed doing that as well as my side gigs. When COVID hit, that changed everything for everyone. And I won't get into the things that I did with my side gig at that point, but I made some personal decisions that I wanted to look back at my career and have something a little bit different than what I was currently doing. It was like a lot of people, a good time for a change. And that biggest change was that I really wanted to go to the client side, work for a biotech company and experience what it was like on that side versus the consulting side. That's where we were back in 2020.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Now that's a big commitment to make, because you had been doing different things. And of course, even way back before all that, you had a master's degree and did other things as a physician, but that's a big commitment. And as I saw what you were doing, because I could always look on LinkedIn and hopefully you were keeping that up to date. I could see that you were getting involved in more and more different things. I thought you'd be perfect to give us another perspective. I've interviewed a few people working in pharma, but it's usually a specific position we focus on, but I think you can give me a little more of a better perspective, because knowing how physicians are searching for jobs that are more fulfilling and satisfying, and a lot have thought about how can I get into biopharma? So that's why I thought I'd have you come back and enlighten us a little bit today. What is it that interested you about biotech and pharma personally?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yeah, great, great question here. When I started to make my transition over 20 years ago from clinical practice, I considered biotech and pharma and device, and actually did not consider it as seriously as I should have. I thought it was the dark side. I thought it's an easy choice. If you don't want to be a practicing physician, you think about insurance, or you think about pharma. And I didn't want to be such a clich�.

I dabbled a little, but ended up, you're right, getting a master's degree, getting a nutrition, additional training there. I worked for a number of different firms, an employee benefits firm, and then multiple consulting firms. I started some other businesses. And I slowly was always seeing this common thread of being involved with biotech in some way. And I can tell you that what I have done for the past five years has been so fulfilling and so much fun. It's completely changed my life being working directly for a biotech company. And I will most likely finish out my career doing this.

I still have some side gigs. I think that's important. I've always talked about multiple irons in the fire, because it's really easy to get so caught up in the day to day. And you never really know what's going to happen. COVID's another great example, never saw that coming. So making sure that you're diversifying yourself and your career, I still maintain that that's really, really important within compliance, of course, if you're working for a company, that's going to be an issue, which we won't go into today. But it's really fascinating how much fun it is working for biotech. And I know we're going to talk a little bit about that today.

John: Yeah. Well, what's so fun about it? What is it that you personally find to be the fun parts? Because something that's fun for you might not be fun for somebody else. But for you personally, what is it that you like about being involved with the type of company that you are?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yes, there are two big things that I love about my job. And one is the actual work. And that was something that I've always talked about as being really important, but really hard to find with a career, because you may be influenced by your boss or your colleagues or the autonomy or lack thereof, or all of these other little things, which are also important, by the way. But if you don't like the work, that will drive you to burnout and to just being not your best self.

And so, for me, the work is something I love. I love being able to be able to understand the scientific articles and explain them to others, talk amongst my colleagues about the science and the medicine aspects, learn the new things that we don't learn in medical school about clinical trials and all the aspects. Working with the FDA, looking at the different clinical endpoints, inclusion criteria, talking about the criticisms of different trials and how they compare or don't, and working with other physicians who are experts in the field.

We should get into that too, because that's really interesting working with other physicians, because most people in my position at a pharmaceutical company or device company, they are physicians or their PhDs. And so, how does that differ from the physicians that I work with that are still in practice? But that's an aspect I really, really like as well.

The last part about what I really like about my job is working with very smart and really quirky colleagues. Anyone who's really smart, I feel like has some unique aspect about them that kind of makes them quirky. And I love that about people, just finding out what their unique characteristics are and being able to talk with them about science and just really high level complex stuff, but also get to know them as people and what their hobbies are, what they like to do. They like to go axe throwing or something else that you wouldn't think about. And most people would never think about doing either. Typically people in these companies, they have these really cool hobbies that you then get to learn about.

John: It reminds me about some of the things when I was chief medical officer and thinking back, what did I really like? I really liked the science behind the quality improvement. I would sit in my office by myself creating reports for the board and that. And so, I'm more of an introvert, but that's what I liked. And I had no trouble spending two or three hours doing this report and then explaining it to, let's say, the board or somebody else.

The other thing you mentioned, like the quirky people, our CMO was a nurse. CMO, he was a nurse of course. And he raised chickens. I'm like, okay, there's a weird quirky thing to do. And he'd go to not conferences, but they'd have these shows where he could find the best new chicken breed out there. It's like, you got to be kidding me. But yeah, it's good. It's different than being face-to-face with patients all day. And you do get to interact with physicians in other realms clinically. And the thing again about the pharma and the biotech, it's so scientific. If you have a scientific mind, I think you really fit in well there.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yes. Yes. I completely agree. I have a colleague who likes to fix coffee makers. How interesting is that? And how different? I would not really thought about doing that, but yeah, just buying coffee makers that may have a small problem and fixing them, making them look really good and selling them. It's interesting.

John: That's interesting. And if yours breaks down, well, you know where to go.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Right. Exactly.

John: To be an entrepreneur and to have to build something yourself is one thing, but tell me, there was something very comforting about being part of a large corporation and probably most pharma companies are massively larger than let's say a hospital that I worked for, but there was just a consistency and the hours were regular and there was a nice IRA or whatever, but that wasn't a pension anymore. But yeah, they had that all worked out. So you find some of that helpful and beneficial as well?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yes. I think the constant struggle of an entrepreneur is can get old and that grind can get to be something that I've spoken with other physicians who have started companies, sold companies, and then moved into more of a corporate job or just a job where they receive a regular paycheck. It's part of that. Yes. But I will say that in biotech, it's not a massive company all the time that there are really small biotech pharma device companies and they have a different culture than the larger companies. So if someone has tried this before and they haven't really flourished in the way that they want, maybe it's just a matter of a small company versus a large company.

John: How do you prepare for that? What advice do you have? Is there something I can do ahead of time that gives me just a little bit of exposure, maybe a little certain skills that would be good for biotech versus a large pharma company, something like that. Any thoughts on that?Dr.

Michelle Mudge-Riley: It's really hard because you'll hear about physicians and others who have tried for years to get into a biotech company or an insurance company or just to get into this nonclinical career space and have had a lot of difficulty. And so that's a common question. What sort of certifications do you need? What sort of degree? Should I go get an MBA? What have you done to make you successful? And I think the number one thing is that this is really not what people want to hear, but this is what I see over and over and I experienced myself. It's talking to others. It's getting out to people that you don't know that are working in the space and talking to them about what they do.

All of these things are relationship driven type jobs. And often you end up getting your job, maybe not because you're the best fit, but because you knew someone. I don't know, for better for worse, that's how it goes. Because with all of these applicant tracking systems and people not knowing others, you may be the perfect fit for a job or multiple jobs, and you won't even get an interview and that gets people really down. I get it. It's so humbling, but it's not you. It's the system and the system is not perfect. And so, the more people you can talk to and find out about keywords to use, what the industry is actually like, what sort of transferable skills you have. I know you talk about transferable skills on your podcast a lot, and who's there at the company that maybe went to your universe. It could be as simple as that to get that interview. And then everyone likes you when they're talking to you because physicians are typically likable people and we all have the ability to go work at a biotech company if we wanted to.

John: Yeah, I think that's really good advice. Between LinkedIn and Doximity, you can probably locate most of your former med school cohorts, your residency, your fellowship, whatever it might be. And chances are someone out of all those hundreds of people that you know, is doing something kind of maybe what you're thinking about. So I've heard that before. And I'm being an introvert. I don't like to really necessarily reach out to people, cold call them, but an email or call they really, they always respond positively in my experience and what I've talked to people about.

I was going to ask you another thing, and it's maybe more about pharma than biotech. See what you think about this. But I imagine if I go on to Pfizer's website and try and apply for a job, I've got about a one in a million chance. But I know pharmaceutical companies use something called the CRO, which we've talked about here before, contract research organization is one definition. But in your experience, whether yourself or with others in businesses you've been involved with, is that something that it can be a bit of a shortcut, or a little easier to get hired than to go directly for one big company?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yeah, I think it's all about timing. There's some good TED talks that really speak to this. It's all about timing. There are some people who apply to jobs at Pfizer, J&J, or some of these massive companies that you might think of off the top of your head that are pharmaceutical companies when you're starting to think about it. And they're applying, they get the job. But yeah, you're right. In general, these positions, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people applying. And so, it's a numbers game in a lot of aspects. And if you're finding a CRO, or maybe a smaller biotech company that people haven't heard of before, it's numbers game, it's just going to be less applicants. And maybe your application, your resume will catch someone's eye. A lot of this, again, is luck, timing, and you can increase your chances by talking to people in those relationships.

John: It's always better to have someone you can actually send your resume to, even if you go through the electronic version of that, it's still nice to have a human that might be able to sit through them and find yours. See, with the pandemic, it really kind of blew things up a bit. But there used to be some large national meetings that would occur every once in a while. And you could just show up or maybe attend the meeting, maybe it was on some topic related to a diagnostic class or something. And then you could run into people and meet them, take their cards. Does that still happen, do you think?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yes, yes. I think that still happens a lot. The Medical Affairs Professional Society, or MAPS, is a great example. They have an annual meeting every year in the US. They also have one in the EU every year. That's a great place to maybe start that networking or go to the meeting. It's not a guarantee. So just knowing that ahead of time is important.

John: Let me ask you a definition issue. Because one thing you can do is you can maybe look up people on LinkedIn, again, see if it cross paths with something else you've done in life. But the thing is, what are you looking for? Like medical director, it's a common term in pharma, biotech, medical devices, it doesn't mean that much per se, because it's such a general term. Would that be something you would shoot for right away? Or are there other entry level positions one might usually go to?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yeah, that's a tough one. Because you're right, medical director is such an ambiguous term. And it can mean something different in a lot different industries and at a lot of different companies. It's a good term, but it's going to be tough to use to search and find what you need there.

Medical Science Liaison is more of an entry level sometimes type job into these companies. The thing about an MSL is it's quite different from a medical director. And working as an MSL means you are working within medical affairs, whereas maybe some physicians will be a better fit to work for clinical development, or maybe even clinical operations. Or they may feel like the MSL role is a little bit of a demotion. So, you really have to balance all of those things.

If you're looking to find people in a medical director role, which I think is a really doable and achievable entry level role for most physicians, because we have the degree, we have the background, we have the clinical knowledge, and that's really looked at in a positive way, is to search by different companies. Maybe make a list of companies and then do that cross check and cross reference on LinkedIn. And then you can find people maybe a little bit easier within these different departments at that company.

John: Now, here's the question I've never asked anyone. But again, I'm always noticing these terms and trying to keep them all straight. But I've seen a number of people that the word global is in part, like global medical director, global this, global that. I assume that means because it's international. But what the heck does that really mean? Does it mean you're traveling the globe to do your work? Or what's your experience with that?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: You mean something different at every company. It most likely means that you are on the global team, which means you'll interact with colleagues in the EU or Asia, just somewhere other than the United States. But doesn't necessarily mean that you're traveling there. But it may, it may mean you're traveling there a lot. So it's very different depending on the company.

John: See, I talked to somebody about medical device, he teaches people how to do the MDR stuff in Great Britain. And his comment was though, let's say you're on that side of the pond, and you're looking for a job like this, because we get people that go back and forth. And he said, whatever you're doing there in Europe usually is going to apply in the United States, because all the companies in Europe that make drugs and biotech, they want to also sell in the United States. That can be a good thing to know that there's options on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Absolutely, yes, there is a lot of money in drugs in the US for better for worse. We could have a whole conversation about the ethics behind that. And is this the right thing? And how does this work needed for R&D? Let's not go down any of those routes. But you're right. Yes.

John: But I think they're big businesses. And so, they either hire a lot of people directly or indirectly. So that's good. It's a good option for physicians, we're scientists, and we most of us use drugs and medical devices so that kind of makes for a natural transition.

I think you alluded to this next question, but I have it on my list. I'm going to double check. That has to do with how to prepare or to increase your chances. I know we both don't tell people to go out and spend $60,000 or $100,000 on MBA just to get a job in a pharma company. But is there anything out there in terms of maybe a certificate exposure to research? I don't know, ways to get a little bit on your resume that might be might demonstrate some knowledge?

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yeah. I wish but not really. It really comes down to all the things that I talked about before. The timing, the knowing people the right place, right time, you can get certifications just to make sure that you know about these different topics, or you're well educated, you can do a good job in the interviews. And that's great. And maybe that will help you a bit. But it's nothing is a slam dunk guarantee. That's the really hard part about all of this. I wish there was. But if there was, we would already know about it now, I guess, right?

John: Yeah, I think it gets back to what you said earlier, if you can have a connection and find out, narrow your search down based on talking to people, you may find in that particular job that this particular certification might help you get that job, but it's not going to apply across the board.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yes, yes. And if you're truly interested in that topic, getting that certification is only going to help you. And that's good, you should never just be doing things to get the job. In two years, you're going to be tired of it, you're going to be moving on anyway. So, try to also check your own self and make sure that you're doing these things, because you want this information. And would you do it anyway? Maybe if it's a little bit? Well, no, probably not, a little bit it's okay. But if it's you're just doing this to get the job, that may be also a little bit of a signal that this isn't the right field, or maybe looking at an easier way to do it, because you shouldn't be killing yourself to try to get that job.

John: Yeah, you should have the knowledge and a lot of the skills that already that would apply in that job.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yes.

John: Because like you said, so many of them are filled by physicians. So there is a demand there. And it's just a matter of getting that communicated across to the company in the HR department that you're applying to. Okay, Michelle, well, I think I've bent your ear for long enough here. So why don't you close by giving our listeners here some any last minute advice or positive words of encouragement for those that are thinking "I do want to try something different. And I do think it's in the biotech or biopharma area."

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is something that I usually mentioned, so people have heard me speak before they've heard this, and they'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's lose confidence in yourself. And I'm just as guilty of it as others. We go through these phases where we're so beaten down by rejection, and things not working out, it's really easy to start thinking that you're not good enough, you don't know enough, you're not smart enough, not good looking enough, not tall enough, you're never going to make it. I hate those periods, but we all go through them. And that's what's going to just bring you down even more. Because when you're when you're in that place, you can't be the person that you are. And I think all of us as physicians, we got into med school, we got through at least a year, most of us all the years and all the residency, but whether you cut it short or not, you still were able to get there. And you are good enough to be in one of these jobs.

So don't lose confidence in yourself, do whatever it takes, have your support system, find a therapist, find a coach, find whatever it takes to just kind of get yourself to the point where you're able to talk about your strengths and your weaknesses, but be able to articulate what you want to do, and why you want to do it and why you're a good fit. And then it's a numbers game. It's annoying like that, but it is.

John: Yeah, and I know that you and I both could give dozens, if not hundreds of examples of physicians who have done that, and they thought it was kind of impossible at first, and then they realized "No, it's not." And now they're having great careers and loving it. So that's excellent reminder.

All right, Michelle, with that, I think it's time to say goodbye. I will tell people, I have links in the show notes, just reminding them that they can find you at LinkedIn. And that'd probably be the best way to reach out to you if they have any questions or things they want to double check. Maybe they went to school with you, and they've lost touch. Maybe you can help them get a job in pharma. But anyway, with that, I'll say goodbye.

Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley: That sounds great. Thanks, John. Thanks for your time. Thanks for having me.

John: You're welcome.

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Embrace Stage 2 of the 12 Month Roadmap to a New Career – 312

John Jurica — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 13:45:23 +0000

Months 2 Through 4

In this solo episode, John explains how to embrace Stage 2 of the 12-Month Roadmap. It is a plan he originally designed to guide you from full-time clinical practice to chief medical officer of a hospital.

However, this comprehensive roadmap can also be adapted to other nonclinical roles, in industries such as pharma, consulting, insurance, education, and health system management.

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By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Navigating Your Nonclinical Career Path: A 12-Month Roadmap

Welcome back, fellow explorers! As we move ahead on our nonclinical career journey, remember that while this roadmap spans 12 months, the timing can vary based on the time you can commit and competing commitments.

Flexibility is key. Our stages overlap, and some might warrant revisiting. Do you lean towards pharma's diverse roles or health systems' intricate landscape? Perhaps insurance or benefit management intrigues you. Focusing on proven strategies will guide your way.

If you're unsure, don't fret. As we venture into Stage 2 (months 2-4), brace yourself for illuminating insights and useful tools.

Navigating Stage Two: Building Networks and Enhancing Credentials

As you embrace Stage 2, you'll seamlessly integrate into professional networks, expand your connections, and explore new certifications or degrees.

This phase is a focused and engaging three-month process, marked by strategic steps that gradually propel you toward your nonclinical career goals.

Join a Professional Organization
Start Networking
Explore Certifications and Degrees

Summary

During this discussion, John highlights valuable resources to aid your journey. Access a comprehensive list of nonclinical jobs at 70 Nonclinical and Nontraditional Careers. And gain insights into the services of professional organizations in this resource: Professional Organizations for Nonclinical Careers. Your nonclinical career path is just a step away.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

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Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 312

Embrace Stage 2 of the 12 Month Roadmap to a New Career

John: All right nonclinical nation, let's talk about stage 2 of the 12 month roadmap. This is a roadmap to any nonclinical career. It probably would apply to applying for clinical careers, but there's some things that are very different. This one is specifically for nonclinical jobs.

I did address stage one or phase one, which is really month one, back in a podcast episode. I think it was October or November of 2022, so it wasn't that long ago, but I've been remiss in not getting to step two or phase two.

Now, I want to tell you that the 12 months is somewhat arbitrary. With effort, the process could probably be accomplished much quicker. But on the other hand, 12 months is a nice round number and it takes into account the need to give up maybe up to six months' notice for some employment contracts for you to leave. It might be 90 days, might be one 20 or maybe even six months or longer. That kind of fits in with the 12 month timeframe.

Today I'm going to talk about, like I said, stage two, which covers months two through four of the process. Now, everything I'm going to discuss today have been discussed in other podcast episodes and sometimes other videos and courses. But I'm putting this course together in nice bite-sized pieces so that you can actually work along with the steps if you'd like. I'll put a link to the episode where we covered step one or phase one.

With that, remember too that the stages do overlap and in some cases may need to be repeated, depending on what's happening at that stage. I'll remind you that stage one included basically four tasks. Overcoming limiting beliefs, myths and misconceptions. Reviewing job descriptions more as a learning process than actually for application. Identifying mentors and starting to engage with the mentors. And then setting up your initial LinkedIn profile. It doesn't have to be complete.

However, now we're moving into stage two. You've done all that and stage two includes identifying and joining appropriate professional organizations, growing and accessing your network and exploring degrees and certifications. Let's get to my presentation right now and dig into those topics.

The other prerequisite when starting this 12 month roadmap is that you already have some idea at least what industry you want to pursue. In other words, do you want to do something in pharma? You could select that single industry because it has dozens of different types of jobs, and many of them are entry level. Or do you want to do something in health systems and hospitals? Do you want to do something in insurance company and on the benefit management side like UM or do you want to pick two or three of those and dig into it a little bit before narrowing it down? You can do that, but you have to have some idea.

If you start this process with absolutely no idea, you need to do a little bit of pre-work, I guess is what I would call it, by just learning a little bit about some of these jobs. And then you can get into more detail and narrow it down during this 12 month process.

Maybe just to give you an overview of the entire process. I've talked about stage one. Stage two we'll talk about today includes things like joining a professional organization, starting more intensive networking and exploring certificates and degrees or just coursework.

Stage three, you're going to start really searching job listings, access some of the courses you may have identified, perhaps pursue that certificate. There are certificates you can get in 10, 15, 16 weeks, whatever, three months that can help you in your job search. You can be continuing to consult regularly with your mentor, and then you can really focus on networking and finding sponsors, which I'm using that term means somebody at a company or at a recruiter's office who will stand up for you, will look at your resume and will help facilitate your transition.

And then stage four, we're getting really into the nitty gritty, resume, writing, creating your template and a cover letter that you'll customize. Update your LinkedIn profile so it really is on target. And then start making some phone calls to employers and HR departments and recruiters.

And then the next stage five is where you are selecting job opportunities. You're doing really heavy research on the places where you've been asked to do at least an introductory visit, probably online screening call, really customizing your cover letter and resume, preparing for telephone interviews and face-to-face interviews, attending the interview and then following up. And then really the sixth stage is, either start the new job or repeat the process, go to the beginning and starting over if let's say you've had two or three or four interviews and they haven't gone anywhere. That's the overview.

But let's get back to stage two here. We're really serious about moving into a nonclinical career. There are things that are just different when you're looking at a nonclinical career. That's why although there's probably parallels in maybe applying for a new job as a clinician, this would apply to physicians, nurses and anybody really who's a licensed clinician. There's a lot of similarities partly because what drives us away from clinical care and taking care of patients is pretty much the same in terms of many of us are driven to that by being overworked, being underappreciated, not really being considerate of our time and our work-life balance. Trying to keep our salaries to a minimum even though we're all extremely well educated and committed people that are doing these jobs. A lot of this applies to really anybody in healthcare making the change.

What I've put in stage two, it's some homework. And I make this about a three month process because this takes time. Meeting with a mentor, you can do that in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and once a month really. You shouldn't overburden a mentor. Like I say, that comes in the next stage, really, although you should be doing that all along. But doing the steps in stage two do require some effort and some focus and some time.

The three major steps that I've included in that phase to try and really get you up to speed is number one, to join a professional organization, or two or three. Number two, to start networking in earnest. And then number three is explore certifications and degrees. Because by the time you get done with your month one, kind of looking through those job descriptions and looking at these organizations and learning more about a potential industry, you're going to find that there may or may not be requirements for some kind of certification and a degree or even just taking some courses.

Let's go through each of these separately. And again, I'm probably going longer than I want to, but let's just kind of go through this quickly and see what we can do. And I have resources for you too. That's the only reason I wanted to bring this up today. Many of you follow my podcast or been to my website and you probably already have these, but I have some pretty useful resources.

Joining a professional organization. Let's say that you've gone through the first phase, you've narrowed it down to an industry or two, and now maybe you even narrowed it down to a job within that industry. In hospital management, there's a pretty standard procedure. You do part-time work as a physician advisor, you might start doing part-time work as a medical director, either of a service line or quality improvement or CDI or informatics, something like that.

And then if you're really serious, you may move into a full-time position as a medical director. And in some organizations that are big, you might become a senior medical director or executive medical director or something like that. In pharma, there are different jobs in different divisions that we talk about. And there are organizations actually for each division in a sense, or at least there's more than one organization if you're working in pharma.

That brings me to the handout I was going to mention. Most people that I know are following me have already gotten the handout on 70 nonclinical and unconventional careers for a physician. That one is a basic one that has 70 plus different jobs by title described, but I mentioned it here, under joining a professional organization because it actually lists a resource for each of those jobs. And the resource is oftentimes a society or an association. And you can find that if you go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/70jobs.

But I have another handout that is not as well known, and I don't push it that often. And the thing about this handout is it is a list of professional organizations for nonclinical careers. The nice thing about this handout is that it tells you some of the factors for each of these associations or professional organizations. And since we're also talking about exploring certifications and degrees, some of these organizations have some type of certification or degree.

But let me mention just before I get into that, what the organizations are for some of the more common nonclinical positions. If you're thinking about looking at CDI, you would probably want to look at either the American Academy of Professional Coders or the Association of Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists. Those are the two that can really help you prep and get ready to apply for a job in utilization management and or clinical documentation improvement or both, because the billing and the coding go hand in hand.

If you can become an expert in billing and or coding or understand how to use protocols for doing benefits management, meaning approving or not approving certain requests for procedures or for meds, then that would be really helpful. If you're looking for a job in pharma and you're thinking about becoming a medical science liaison, there is the MSL society, which is msls.com. If you are looking for a job in public health with the government, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America might be a good one to take a look at.

You can get this list, which I don't know what we've got here, 5, 10, 15 or about 20 organizations more or less, that you can access by going to nonclinicalphysicians.com/polist. That's professional organizations list. It's nonclinicalphysicians.com/polist. And it'll also show you the answer to the question, the third part of this particular step in my model, and it lists which of those organizations have certification and or certificate programs.

It also lists things like is there formal mentorship? Do they have recorded courses, do they have live courses? Do they have a newsletter? Do they have a community of peers? All these questions are answered. Yes, there's a few that, depending on what we're talking about, they might not offer, but a well-developed and mature professional organization typically has all of those things.

For example, there is certificate programs through the American Academy of Insurance and Medicine, the American Academy of Professional Coders, the American Association for Physician Leadership, the AAPL, which is the major organization, the organization, if you're working to become a leader in almost any industry, but particularly in hospital and health systems or in pharma or in the insurance company. Things like that.

Again, if you go to that nonclinicalphysicians.com/polist, it'll give you all that information on one page and will help you to figure out whether you should pursue certification or even a degree. I usually don't promote pushing for a degree very often because you can get the degree after you're already in your first nonclinical job and it'll be more pertinent anyway to what you're doing. Let's say you decide to go to the AAPL and try to get the CPE, or you try to get an MMM from a university which is a master in medical management or whatever.

And those are relatively long, those take years to accomplish, but you can do shorter certifications, even shorter degrees, and they'll be much more applicable to what you're doing if you start doing those once you've already got your first nonclinical position. And on top of that, you will be able to get the employer to sometimes pay for that.

And the other big thing in this section is to start networking. Networking means really talking to people. And the one caveat I want to give to networking when you start doing that is, if at all possible, you want to find out if there's something you can do for your mentor, if not initially, at least along the way. In other words, it's not rude, but it's too lopsided just to look for someone that's going to teach you for free. Most mentors will mentor for free physicians, nurses, we've always done that with students.

And so, just keep that in mind. Try and connect to let's say a mentor that you don't know through someone that you do know. You can do a lot of research on LinkedIn. You can start to grow your network on LinkedIn. And on LinkedIn most people will accept almost any request to connect if it's from at least a second degree or particularly if you have an introduction from somebody else.

And then on Doximity, it's fantastic for finding people from your med school class. Remember too, that med school alumni are good. Same thing with residency. You can look for your residency class. You may have kept in touch with those people. But if you can look for your residency alumni, it really expands and you just put something out there saying, "Hey, I'm getting tired of practice and thinking of a nonclinical job." And you might be able to tell on both LinkedIn and or Doximity if they're doing one. If not, then you can always just send the note out and ask them about it and say, "Hey, contact me if you're doing a nonclinical job. I just like to know what you're doing as they start this process."

And sometimes if we're working in a hospital or in a clinic and we find that some of our colleagues have already moved away, it's sometimes good to look them up, reach out to them if you can't tell from their LinkedIn profile what they're doing and say, "Hey, you left here. Are you still practicing or are you doing something nonclinical? Or are you doing a combination of both?" And that can be very helpful.

I think that's all I want to say about the 12 month roadmap to a new career today. I hope you found that useful. I did mention some resources during the discussion where you can get a list of nonclinical jobs. That one's at nonclinicalphysicians.com/70jobs. And a list of professional organizations and their benefits, which can be downloaded from nonclinicalphysicians.com/polist.

You can find those links and others related to today's presentation at nonclinicalphysicians.com/embrace-stage-2.

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Landing Your First Pharma Industry Job May Be Easier Than You Think – 311

John Jurica — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 12:00:40 +0000

What I've Learned from My Guests

In this solo episode, John explains why landing your first pharma industry job may be easier than you think.

In a recent webinar, a valuable discussion unfolded, shedding light on the allure of Pharma jobs: unveiling their attractiveness, potential for higher income than clinical work, and offering effective tactics to secure your first job in the industry. Today, John presents an excerpt from that very presentation, offering you valuable insights and guidance.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

Compelling Advantages of Nonclinical Pharma Careers

Among the various nonclinical job options (consulting, hospital and health systems, pharma, medical writing, governmental roles, and education) pharma emerges as an attractive industry. It represents a significant portion of the United States healthcare spending, possibly more than 10%.

Here is a summary of the features that make the Pharma Industry so attractive to clinicians:

Huge Industry: Pharma constitutes a significant portion of healthcare spending. And it provides ample opportunities for diverse roles and job types tailored to individual interests.
Entry-Level Opportunities: Transitioning from clinical practice to pharma offers a fresh start. And it leverages your expertise and experience while embarking on a new career trajectory.
Career Advancement: Pharma offers growth and advancement prospects. Job options range from entry-level positions to leadership roles, welcoming physicians of varying backgrounds and experiences.
Status and Leadership: Physicians are valued for their unique skills and expertise. Many take on managerial and leadership roles due to their respected status.
Work-Life Balance: Nonclinical roles in pharma generally promote work-life balance. They offer predictable working hours and generally avoid the demanding schedules of clinical practice.
Performance-Driven Compensation: Unlike volume-based clinical work, pharma compensation is based on job performance and the ability to increase revenues or reduce costs.

Exploring Opportunities and Roles in Pharma Companies

Pharma companies have various divisions, including finance, sales, marketing, manufacturing, human resources, and legal and regulatory. However, physicians aiming for nonclinical roles often find opportunities in research and development (R&D) and medical affairs, particularly in clinical development involving human trials.

Medical affairs offer a broad range of roles, while safety and pharmacovigilance open up numerous job prospects for physicians. Contract research organizations (CROs) are vital in supporting pharma companies by providing flexible employment options and handling various tasks, such as clinical design, decentralized trials, medical writing, and safety management for multiple pharmaceutical clients.

Choosing between direct employment at pharma companies and CROs depends on individual preferences and circumstances, with both options offering distinct advantages. For physicians seeking a swift entry into the pharmaceutical world or proximity to their current location, CROs present an accessible and attractive alternative to explore.

Summary

By exploring nonclinical opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry, physicians can embark on fulfilling career paths that cater to their interests, skills, and desire for a more balanced professional life. Many physicians are surprised to find that the obstacles to securing a job in the pharma industry are not as high as perceived.

This is evident through the experiences of the colleagues John mentioned with no prior pharma experience. Pharma companies highly value physicians' capacity to acquire new skills and their sincere dedication and enthusiasm.

The full webinar describes four other physicians' journeys, along with tactics for a successful career shift. For those interested in exploring more about pharma industry jobs, the complete one-hour recording can be accessed at The Wonderful World of Nonclinical Pharma Industry Jobs.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 311

Landing Your First Pharma Industry Job May Be Easier Than You Think

John: My goal today is that when we're done, you'll be able to describe why you're qualified for a pharma job, whether you're licensed or not licensed, whether you have any experience or not, and so forth.

The next thing I want you to understand and be able to verbalize is to list the reasons why you'll earn more in pharma job than you would in most clinical jobs eventually. That's not on day one necessarily, but in actual fact, you'll probably earn more in salary doing something in pharma than you will in your clinical job. And then the third is that you'll be able to implement strategies for landing your first nonclinical pharmaceutical industry job.

Now, when I talk about nonclinical jobs, there's at least nine major industries. You've got consulting, you've got hospital and health systems, you've got pharma, you've got medical writing, there's a bunch of governmental jobs, there's educational jobs.

But why pharma? Basically pharma is a huge industry. It makes up and consumes about 10% of the healthcare dollars in the United States, at least last I checked. It might be more now, honestly, because I have not seen so much drug advertising in my life since the pandemic. Maybe it's more than 10 or 11 or 12%. It's huge.

And there's a lot of job types in pharma. Depending on your interests, you're probably going to be able to find a job in pharma, unless you want something where you're 100% remote working from home. UM for insurance companies, you can do that. Probably not going to find a pharma job where you can do that, although there are some jobs where you can do some remote work.

The other thing is that this is an entry level job for us. When we're physicians and we're looking to go into pharma, for most of us, we haven't done anything in pharma in the past. So, we are starting from the bottom, but obviously it's at the peak of our career wherever we are. We're taking everything we've learned and we're going to apply it to that new job. But in stepping into that new job, you're just beginning. And so, there's a lot of steps you can still go through if you decide to look for advancement.

And for physicians, there are jobs in pharma for those that have 10, 12 years of experience, have multiple specialties, MBA and all that kind of thing. To physicians who don't have a license and they haven't done a residency. There are plenty of jobs for those and everything in between.

The other thing is that your status will grow over time, meaning that you will move up. It's natural because you're working on a multidisciplinary team, and there are some things only physicians can do in pharma. And on top of that, people look to physicians as leaders and managers. And so, there's always progress and more status and more responsibility if that's what you want.

And then the other thing is there's work-life balance. There's no such thing really as a 60 or 70 hour a week job in pharma. There might be times when you have to do something like that, depending on the level that you're at and what your role is. But typically you're going to work 40, 45 hours a week in almost any of these jobs.

And the way that you earn your money for the most part is just by seeing patients and doing procedures. It's completely volume driven. If you want to say, "Hey, I want to increase my income by 50%, what does that mean?" You got to see 50% more patients, do 50% more procedures or a combination of the two. Basically what you're saying is you have to increase your hours unless you can get a little more efficient. But mostly efficiencies are what they are.

The EMRs don't seem to be getting any easier. And so, you're locked in, you're basically locked in for the next 15, 20, 25 years to whatever you're doing. And if you want to try and make a little more money and get some bills paid off ahead of time or some loans, then that just means you got to not have time with your family, not see your kids and get burnt out. And so, that's the big difference between almost every nonclinical job and being a practicing physician.

So, let's talk about pharma. You have to have an understanding of pharma. We don't really get a good understanding in training. Yes, we hear about phase 1, 2, 3 studies, phase 4, post release, monitoring and patient safety and maybe drug safety, medication safety.

But do we really know how a pharma company works? Do we know how it's set up? I want to spend maybe five or 10 minutes the most, just so you understand, because then you'll understand where your options are for a job in pharma. And if you haven't really explored this before, then this is going to be important. You need to figure out where to go, what direction to take, because you can't really learn about everything in pharma in a short period of time. It helps if you understand it, and you can narrow it down.

There are usually about I'll say seven major divisions in almost any large pharma company. I'll start with the ones that you are not going to work in. Finance is huge. Sales and marketing, huge. Manufacturing, so far no physicians involved. Human resources, no physicians. Legal and regulatory. Well, if you're a MD/JD that might be an option. You can do that, but probably not.

Really it boils down to two major divisions and sometimes safety is broken out. But basically you've got research and development and medical affairs. There are obviously multiple. But to take it to the next step, the main departments within those major divisions are three, but might be four if you include one. One is regulatory. We don't do much in regulatory unless that's where they maybe will employ technical, medical writers that help translate the medical legal stuff into the package inserts and things like that.

But the big one is clinical development. Clinical development is kind of a piece of R&D. Because research and development can include preclinical research and development and bench work and things like that, animal studies. But once you get into human trials, now you're into clinical development. There are people in there, and I'll talk about them in a minute.

And then you've got medical affairs, which is another big massive area with different kinds of jobs. And I'll talk about the purpose of that. And then safety and pharmacovigilance, which is another area where there are a lot of jobs for physicians.

Now, there's one big thing, one big player in pharma that I haven't talked about. What about a CRO? What is a CRO? It used to be a contract research organization. Now when you start looking at contract research organizations or CROs that way, you'll come up often with a clinical resource organization.

At this point, I think they basically are very similar, if not the same. When I see something that's a CRO, it's usually smaller and focused on just two, three or four major activities of a pharma company. When I get into clinical research organizations, they seem to be bigger.

But the reason I bring up a CRO is because they hire a lot of these jobs, which support the pharma companies. Think about it this way. Pharma companies are like hot and cold. In other words, they spend years and years. I don't know how many years, it takes at least some eight to 10 years to bring a new drug to market. They spent all this time getting ready to release it, and then it's time to release it.

And leading up to that for about a year and then after it for about a year, there's a lot of activity that wasn't going on. And so, rather than hire a bunch of new people, have worked them for nine months, a year, two years and then firing all of them, they hire people from CROs. And because CROs serve multiple clients, multiple pharma companies, they can balance things out and try and maintain a steady crew of people that have long-term longevity with the CRO, but not with the pharma company.

Now, when they hire you, you work for the CRO, but there are relationships with pharma companies where you're simply a contract person. You may be someone who can be contracted and then hired, or they may actually do the hiring for the pharma company and you're actually employed by them. So it can work in different ways. Parexel, PRA Health, ICON, some of you may have heard of these. PPD. These are common CROs.

Everything from clinical design to actually running the studies, decentralized clinical trials across the country, medical writing, and then they help with clinical monitoring. They help with safety, they help with biostatistics, help with managing and handling patients. They'll do almost anything that a pharma company needs to do on a contract basis.

The advantage to this for you is that it's easier to find employment with a CRO than directly with a pharma company. Now if you're someone who has a master's degree in medical research and you've done studies as an undergrad or while you were in med school, you've got a master's degree in some related area, you could probably start with just applying it at pharmaceutical companies and maybe you already have contacts with them, which would be great, and there's no harm in doing that.

But at the same time, if you're someone who doesn't have any of those things, doesn't really have an obvious segue into pharma, but you're still interested in pharmacology, you still have managing drugs, and you have other interests, you like the lifestyle. You've read some of the information about the FDA and about clinical trials, you love looking through studies. Then a way to short circuit or shorten the process is to look at CROs as an option. And you should look at both really. And particularly if you're in a location where you don't want to travel or you don't want to move to another city or something for a job, you should look at both, see which pharma companies are nearby, which CROs are nearby.

Let's go through each of these departments and just quickly kind of give you an idea of what they do. Clinical development, pretty straightforward. These are the kind of jobs you'll see when you're looking on LinkedIn or Indeed and other places. Actually, the three places you should look for jobs when you really start looking and actually, if you're interested, you should start looking at job descriptions now, not because you're ready to apply, but you need to know what are the requirements, what's mandatory, what's nice to have, what's the language, what lingo comes up over and over that maybe you've not heard before because then it'll point you in the direction of things you need to learn.

But these are terms used in the clinical development part of pharma. Principal investigator, clinical researcher, medical director, medical monitor, and clinical research associate. There's others but if you see those kinds of terms, then you're probably talking about a clinical development job.

Medical director is pretty generic and you're going to find that in all divisions where there are physicians involved. Medical affairs, huge part of the company. Like I say, that's the company that has to take this new drug, and even before it has been finally approved by the FDA, get ready to get it out into the world, I guess is how I put it. And that includes everything from education and logistics and getting it delivered and advertising and marketing and all those things. There are people in that division or department that do those things. So, you might see a CMO, you might see a senior medical director, medical director, associate medical director.

And the other big one, which is very attractive to people who are getting started in pharma, is a medical science liaison. Now, if you get into safety or pharmacovigilance, it's the same thing. You can have medical advisors there a little more common, medical director, medical writers there as well as possibly the regulatory. And then safety scientists.

I bring up safety scientists because in one of the scenarios I'm going to talk about in a minute, if you're looking for a job in safety or pharmacovigilance, which are basically synonyms, different companies use different terms, and you do not have a license, you do not have a residency or board certification. The extent of your patient contact is basically in medical school. Then sometimes you can get a job as a safety scientist, which I'm going to explain in detail later. Notice medical is not in that term.

All right. Now I want to talk a little bit about compensation. It kind of gets back to what I was talking about under the objectives and when I made the statement about potential income. I don't have salary surveys for all of these different areas. It'd be almost impossible to do a salary survey for something let's say like a medical director in medical affairs because there's different medical directors over different areas.

There's a lot written about medical science liaisons. If you look up MSL or medical science liaison annual salary, it will pop right up and they do it every year. And the 2022 is the one I'm referencing here. They probably will publish the 2023 if they continue to do what they've been doing in early 2024.

But let me just say a little bit about salaries. A medical science liaison is probably like a medical monitor or something along those lines. Let's say even an assistant medical director. It could be down in the $180,000, that region. I think even medical science liaisons can sometimes start at $160,000. But you have to understand that a medical science liaison can be a physician, can be a PA, can be an NP, can be a PharmD. It's even possible sometimes they'll call some that's an MSL. That's a kind of master's or maybe even a bachelor's degree.

But a physician MSL is not the same obviously as a nurse MSL. And so the physicians get higher pay closer to $180,000 and the salaries go up from year one at about $160,000 let's say for the non-physicians and $170,000 for the physicians up to $220,000, $230,000 after 10 years. Now, most physicians in that period of time will have moved up the ladder, but just gives you an idea about jobs.

The other thing I found in talking with lots of physicians who have converted from clinical to nonclinical or non-traditional jobs is that sometimes they have to take a little bit of a hit. But when you compare apples to apples, if you're working 65 hours a week and getting paid, I don't know, $230,000 in a family practice clinic or something, and you become an MSL at $190,000, but you're working 45 hours a week, you can kind of do the math.

And then the other thing you can realize there is that the lifestyle is better because you have better work-life balance, as I said at the beginning. And you have absolutely no risk of being sued. I should add that to the beginning of this presentation on a comparison. If you work for pharma and other nonclinical jobs for the most part, you'll never be sued. It'd be one in a million. When you're a physician, it's more like at least 50% to 80%, depending, maybe a 100% in some specialties. So, you got to compare apples to apples.

But the other thing is, even if you do take a little dip, like I say, you'll very quickly move up in experience. You will be able to do a lateral move if you like, once you are experienced for a year or two. Because now you'll be able to apply for those jobs where they're looking for the experience and they're paying more or you'll move up in terms of promotions.

Physicians are usually one of the first ones that get promoted to the next job if they want to, if they want to take on more responsibility. But still, the hours are the same, the responsibility is different. It's maybe more, but you drop off the things that you don't need to do any longer. And so, you're still talking about a 40 or 50 hour job even as you move up the ranks.

Now let's get into the strategies to land your first job. I put it this way because that's really the crux of this whole thing. Once you've landed your first job in pharma or pretty much any other nonclinical field, that's where the biggest barrier is. That's the biggest challenge. And so, if you can get that first job, then you can A) settle in, enjoy your lifestyle, get to know your colleagues, learn what you're doing, look around, see if you like that job, and then decide, "Okay, I got some breathing room now. I can think about what do I need to do to advance, what do I need to do to get more of a salary?"

So, let's talk about some of those strategies now and break it down. And the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to use examples of people I've personally spoken with and the way that they did it.

There was a medical school grad from India and he came to the States, he passed his USMLE 1 and 2. Those are the exams you have to take. And then he decided he did not want to apply to a residency. He thought "I just don't want to go back and do three years of more work, get paid less than I really might be able to get paid doing something else." And he was really interested in pharmacology and thought strongly about getting a job in pharma.

Now, in the meantime, he did what a lot of foreign medical grads do is they keep busy doing things in the clinical setting. He started looking around and he spent a lot of time learning about the language, the vernacular in the safety field in pharma. He got involved in things. He learned a lot about patient care working as a doctor assistant. He knew about the EMR. He understood how quality in the outpatient setting was being assessed. I think he took some courses. He didn't get an advanced degree of any sort, and then he was able to, because he actually already met the requirements for a pharmacovigilance scientist because that's a master's level or a bachelor's level position. It doesn't mean he couldn't get paid more because he had the MD but a lot of the pharma positions are eligible for others than physicians.

And so, even if you don't have residency, a physician in pharma is usually at some level equivalent to a PharmD or a PhD. It's a simple way to think of it. And so, if they're willing to hire let's say a master's degree level for a pharmacovigilance scientist, they're going to do an MD as well.

But it's not going to get him at the salary that he wanted. He did that for a couple of years and then he started looking, he looked internally and he looked externally. And even though he only had two or three years of experience, he was able to convince another company to hire him on as associate medical director. And now if there's medical in the term most of the time except for medical science liaison, which includes those other specialties in other fields, but most of the time if it's associate medical director, medical director, executive medical director, that means it's a physician.

So, that's what he got. He got basically a job that most of the time would require at least five or six years of clinical experience after medical school. But he did it because he was able to start at that slightly lower position and then move up. Then I recently interviewed someone who went from family medicine to a primary investigator, which really intrigued me because when I thought of a primary investigator for some of these studies, I was thinking, "Okay, in my mind, the primary investigator is someone who comes up with the purpose of a study. They're interested in some topic. They say, okay, we need to do a study. We can use this drug or something that already exists and I'm going to design the study."

But it's not what a primary investigator is in a CRO or in most pharma companies. That would be a clinical researcher, although sometimes they will also be called a PI. But a PI, the way this physician is using it in this job is someone who's at a site and manages that site for that study.

The drug companies when they're trying to get a drug approved once they get to stage two and three, they need like 15,000 patients, I think. Something like that. It's an enormous number. And so, they've done it at multiple sites and they got to recruit to certain type of patients and randomize them and do that whole thing.

And that's done usually at a local clinical site, whether it's academic or it's a large group that's doing some kind of outpatient study. And so, they need people to basically take care of everything at that site, make sure all the protocols are followed, make sure the safety measurements are there. They may have to look at a patient if there's a question, should just be an inclusion or excluded. They'll look at paperwork or they'll actually physically look at the patient.

So, what she did, she was doing family medicine originally. She got a little frustrated doing just a broad family medicine. And so, she then started to add obesity medicine to her clinic where she was working. She was with a group though, she wasn't solo or anything like that. And after the pandemic, she was getting really burnt out and frustrated with that. So she decided to become a health coach.

And one of the things she did as part of that was she hired a business coach for herself. And so, she started to get coaching about how to create this business as a health coach, health advisor, how to set up a website, how to do your finances, how to understand accounting, how to manage things.

And one of the things they taught her was how to market both herself and her business. She used that to later on market herself and her profile LinkedIn to attract recruiters looking for these primary investigators. And she got in touch with a recruiter and basically that was it. It didn't take that much. I think the recruiter actually reached out to her, saw that she had these skills and a lot of it was just management and leadership skills plus her medical.

And so, she became a primary investigator. They trained her how to do that at the site where she's working or the company she's working for. It is a CRO. But she's put there and she may or may not end up working directly for the company. She doesn't really care at this point because her pay is good and her lifestyle's great and she's happy.

I think the barrier to getting an a pharma job is a lot lower than many of us have thought because all the guests I've had other than maybe one PhD and let's say maybe one who did have, definitely it was someone like Dr. Nerissa Kreher who's got a master's degree in clinical research. They didn't have any experience, but they had other experiences that demonstrated the skills.

And we're physicians, we can pretty much learn anything we put our mind to. They know that. They just want to make sure you're committed and you're not just doing the job or taking the job because you're just burnt out and you'll do anything. You need someone who wants to be in pharma.

Well, that's all we have time for today. During the complete presentation, I described the process that four other physicians followed during their pivot from clinical work to a pharma position. Then I summarize the other tactics to use during a career shift and share several free resources that can be obtained to help accelerate your pivot.

If you want to learn more about why landing your first pharma industry job is easier than you think, then check out the complete one hour recording of the wonderful world of nonclinical pharma careers at this link, nonclinicalphysicians.com/pharmajobs. That's all one word, nonclinicalphysicians.com/pharmajobs.

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Revisiting How to Prepare For a Great Job at a Medical Device Company – 304

John Jurica — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 12:30:16 +0000

Interview with Dr. Paul Hercock

This episode is a replay from early 2022 that explains how to prepare for a great job at a medical device company. This is by far the most listened-to PNC Podcast episode released to date.

Dr. Paul Hercock is an expert at landing a medical device company job, particularly in the European Union. He even wrote a book about it called “Beyond The Ward: A Doctor's Guide to Careers Outside the NHS.”

Paul graduated from Nottingham Medical School, UK, in 2002. After initially training as a surgeon, he pivoted to a career in Emergency Medicine. He also has a law degree from Nottingham Law School.

While working as a clinical doctor, Paul became interested in medical devices. He set up and established Mantra Systems, a medical device start-up focused on improving infection control, followed by a move to full-time as a medical advisor.

Paul is now the CEO of Mantra Systems, a consultancy business that provides medical and regulatory support to medical device companies. His company employs physicians as medical advisors. He has taken what he has learned and built a training program for physicians interested in pursuing a job in the industry. It's called the Medical Affairs Associates Program.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

How to Prepare for a Great Job at a Medical Device Company

Paul's training enables physicians to adapt their existing skills to apply to this area. The Medical Device Regulation (MDR) is new European legislation. To sell a medical device, the manufacturer has to provide evidence that it's safe and effective. Therefore, it requires scrutiny of clinical evidence and reports based on that evidence.

The training program provides broad education on this topic. And it will boost confidence in your skills to be able to work in the industry.

Students can access live and recorded training webinars. The training is inexpensive. And income generated by working on one or two projects in the industry will more than cover those costs.

Also, the program is flexible. Students can participate between existing clinical commitments.

A Fantastic Nonclinical Career

The MDR has created a need for more physician advisors. The cost to start is minimal. And physicians can begin part-time, thereby NOT jeopardizing their current work. And Mantra Systems will direct you to the work opportunities, so there will be no delay in finding work.

These medical device company jobs are open to physicians in the U.S., U.K., and select other E.U. countries. Over time, you can increase your hours and ultimately do this work full-time. And Mantra Systems' Medical Affairs Associates Program will be there to get you started.

Summary

The combination of training and immediate access to medical device company jobs make this a great opportunity if you're looking to pivot to the medical device industry with minimal risk. You can learn more about the training at nonclinicalphysicians.com/mantra. If you're looking to learn how to prepare for a great job, this is an excellent option for many physicians. [Note that there is no financial relationship with Mantra Systems.]

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

Links for Today's Episode:

Mantra Systems
Mantra Systems Medical Affairs Associates Program
MDR Regulations
How to Prepare for a Job in the Medical Device Industry – 169
Paul Hercock's Book, Beyond the Ward
NewScr!pt

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 238

How to Prepare For a Great Job at a Medical Device Company

John: We have a fantastic interview today. I get a lot of questions from my listeners about, "Well, how do I get started in industry?" They usually mean the pharma or medical device industry when they say that. They say "I have no experience. I don't know where to apply for a job." So, this is going to be a great interview because today's guest solves both of those problems. Hello, Dr. Paul Hercock. Welcome back.

Dr. Paul Hercock: Hi, John. Thanks very much for having me back on.

John: Yeah. Because things are changing and when I heard about what's going on with you and Mantra Systems, I thought we got to get you back on. So I really appreciate you. By the way, he's in the UK. This is one of those long-distance interviews, which is working fine. So I love it.

All right. You were here last in about November of 2020, a little over a year and a few months ago. And we did talk about your book then. It's called "Beyond the Ward". It's got a longer title, but it's an awesome book. I've referred many people to it and they've really enjoyed it. And he's an entrepreneur because he started his own company and he is a CEO. But I think you've been expanding and you've got some new programs. Just fill us in since our last visit.

Dr. Paul Hercock: Absolutely. Yeah. It has been a busy year and a half. Things move quite quickly in the medical device space. And I've said to other people, one of the great things about being a comparatively small business is that you can change direction and you can move, perhaps faster than some of the big boys.

When I spoke to you last, we'd identified that there's a real need for connecting medical device companies with clinicians. Because clinicians have really vital skills in abundance that are in fact a real shortage in the medical device industry. And what we're really talking about here is the ability to work with clinical evidence at a high level.

Since I spoke to you last, that's the side of the business that we've been able to expand because our clients in the medical device industry are really, really finding value in having access to doctors, through our program, and thereby to the skills that doctors have. We've really tried to expand that side of the business and hopefully, that's creating more opportunities for doctors as well.

John: Well, it sounds like it to me. I love to hear that because my audience is just looking for those opportunities. They want to get out of clinical medicine for whatever reason. We won't go into the laundry list of why. I always use a disclaimer. I do want people to practice medicine. It's not like we want to siphon everybody off, but there's a need for physicians doing some of these nonclinical jobs. And there's a whole bunch of you out there looking not knowing what's available. So that's why this is just a perfect situation. Last time we spoke, you were doing some training, but the thing that kind of prompted this is that you have a really formalized training, expanded the training. Tell us about that. Why did you create the training, and what's going on with your industry?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Yeah. We can back up slightly and just put a bit of flesh on the bone around that. The initial requirement for this came out of a new piece of European legislation called the MDR, the Medical Device Regulation. And that's modeled quite closely on the FDA model. Which is if you're going to produce a medical device, you need to produce evidence that it's safe and that it works as it should do. And that, therefore, requires scrutiny of clinical evidence, and so on.

That's where the opportunities come from. As I mentioned before, doctors have the core skills, but they don't necessarily have the ability to translate that to a new sector. So the way you look at clinical evidence in practice is slightly different from the way you might use it in the context of medical devices.

The training is there to allow doctors to adapt their existing skills so that it can be applied to this area. Yeah, you need an understanding of, "Well, what is the medical device regulation? What does it say that medical device manufacturers have to do? What role does clinical evidence have in this context and how does it fit into everything else?" It's not possible to operate in a vacuum.

We want everyone on our program who's doing work for us, to have that broad education about how what I'm doing will fit into things. And so they understand why different bits are important. But also, to give them the confidence really, to use the skills they already have in the right way.

What we've done is, previously people who were interested in being part of the program, had access to, I would say, fairly ad hoc online training webinars hosted live, and that had several disadvantages. You and I are in different time zones. So that's one automatic problem with doing it that way. The other disadvantage is that clinicians are busy people and this program is designed to work around existing clinical commitments.

And we thought, actually, if we have this training hosted, on a server so that it's on-demand, people can access training, resources, videos, documents, everything else at a time that suits them. It means it's more flexible. And so we can encourage more people to participate in the program without a barrier, based on time or access.

John: Very nice. Let me ask you this, there might be a question about this. You're hiring people part-time and full-time to help you with this process, with doing this service. What would be the official title? Is it an advisor, or is it a medical director?

Dr. Paul Hercock: This is something that I'm keen to convey. What we're doing is we're offering a range of opportunities really, but it starts with just ad hoc contractor opportunities that people can do as and when they like. That end of the spectrum is for people who are still in clinical practice. And so it's the start point, it's to try before you buy life in the industry. We just call people on that part of the program, associates, medical affairs associates.

And so, what it means is if you thought to yourself, okay, I either want to get some experience or, hey, I've got a week, two weeks off work, or I've got some time at my disposal this weekend and next. The idea is that you can look up the program and the live opportunities that are available and register for a block of work so that you can use that time to earn a second income, but also to gain direct exposure to industry-type work.

And ultimately, what we want is to offer multiple levels to the program that do form a continuum all the way through to full-time employment, for people that are interested, for people whose skills are aligned with this kind of work. The level one foundation training, as we call it, is so that people can access entry-level work, which is mostly literature reviews and medical writing. So working with some of the technical documents that we need to put in place, and that is available to people immediately after doing the level one foundation training. But they don't need to leave their clinical careers, which means they don't need to take any risk to get experience in the industry.

John: Well, that's very helpful, obviously, because that is often a barrier to people to how do they make that transition? But it sounds to me like you put a lot of work into this. There must be some demand that's not being met. With the MDR and the changes, is there just this kind of unmet demand for these reviews and the writing and so forth?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Absolutely. This is a huge thing. What's happened is that the MDR came in and actually, it was supposed to be fully implemented in 2020, but they put it back to 2021 because of the pandemic. But the big change was this requirement to reduce a lot more clinical evidence and to interpret clinical evidence broadly. For example, it's not just the evidence related to the subject device, but the whole of the clinical background as well.

And this is something that some medical device manufacturers really struggle with. Why do we need to look at evidence related to the clinical background in so much context? And the analogy I use is to say, imagine you had a car and the car had been involved in 15 road traffic accidents in the previous three months. That's the evidence related to the car. Is that good or bad? Well, we don't know unless we get safety and performance benchmarks. And when you get into clinical background, well, that could be a huge amount of clinical evidence.

There just aren't enough people in the industry to meet this work demand. What we're able to provide, because we have this program whereby people are mostly in clinical practice, and they can be a flexible resource for us. It works the way around for them as well. We can help meet that demand as it arises without having vacant capacity. It also means, as I said before, for the doctors, who are involved in the program, it's direct exposure to something with no risk.

John: Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, now, as we mentioned earlier, you're in the UK, I'm here in the US. So I'm assuming that my listeners are assuming that I'm not interviewing someone who can't help them if they're in the US. I mean, I do have listeners in the UK and elsewhere. So from what I understand, there are definitely opportunities in both places.

Dr. Paul Hercock: Oh, absolutely. Currently on the program, we have doctors based in the UK, Europe, the US, in several parts of the US, including Hawaii, and also South Africa, and now India as well. We've had some interest from Australia as well.

But the people we have on the program from the US, honestly, and I'm not saying this just because your audience is predominantly in the US, they've been fantastic. I don't know whether that's the function of the type of training in the US or some knowledge of the way the FDA operates, which as I said before, is what the MDR was really aiming for.

But the other great advantage is that all good size medical device companies that sell in Europe either have the headquarters in the US or certainly have a presence in the US. And so there's a real draw there as well. From a client's perspective, what we would say to the client is, "Look, we can link you with a medical reviewer, a medical associate who's based in the US." That's very attractive to them. So, there are definitely, definitely opportunities for people based in the US.

John: Okay, good. Well, obviously that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on here today. So, we could share that with my listeners and give them one more opportunity to consider when they're thinking of a nonclinical career, particularly something they can do as a pilot. That's just fantastic. Tell us more about the program and anything else we need to know in terms of considering this.

Dr. Paul Hercock: Yeah. Another reason it exists actually, and this ties to that question is that I remember my own journey from clinical practice into the industry. And there were really two things that were missing. One was knowledge of what the opportunities were, and how to get them. But the other was exposure. There's always that dreaded interview question. "Well, what experience have you got?" And it's so easy to be in a catch 22. You think, "Well, I haven't got any experience because nobody will give me the opportunity because I don't have the experience that would unlock that door." And that is a common barrier that's faced by doctors looking to move from clinical practice into the industry.

Well, this program, we think at least, can help overcome that to an extent because the work that people do on the program can be used as direct experience, and can be cited as experience. So if you are asked by a future interviewer or recruiter, "Well, what experience do you have in the medical device industry? Or how do you know you'll like this type of work?" To be able to say, "Well, actually, I've been part of teams that write clinical evaluation reports for the European MDR. I've been involved in writing reports for digital medical devices for implantable orthopedic devices," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's quite strong, but also it's not just about ticking the box on a CV, people on the program themselves start to understand whether or not this type of work is for them, which is really important to know.

We have had people that have done the training, found it useful, found it interesting, but that have said, "You know what? It's not for me, but that is really useful information because I didn't know whether it was for me or not before, and now I have an outcome." Even in an outcome like that, that could not be perceived as a negative, it was actually perceived as a positive. But we do certainly have people on the program that have gone on to full-time positions using this as experience. That was really a big part of the motivation about giving access to experience to people, as well as the second income and everything else.

John: It sounds really useful and interesting. If I was only younger, I might look into that. Because of what happens sometimes, I wait till the end to share the information. I think I want to stop here for a minute and do a couple of things. First, I want to recommend everybody pick up the book "Beyond The Ward: A Doctor's Guide to Careers Outside the NHS". Just got to plug the book because there aren't that many books like it out there.

That's number one, but number two, on the medical affairs associates' program, I've got the link here and I'm going to do a shortcut, but it's at mantrasystems.co.uk/medical-affairs-associates. It is kind of hard to remember. So, I'm going to do nonclinicalphysicians.com/mantra and it'll take you right to that link. The page that's got the information has pretty much everything you need to know about it so that you can make a decision. I'm sure there's a question arising about what it costs. And because this might be listened to now or in a few weeks or a year from now, can you just give us a ballpark, of what the training might cost someone if they're looking to pursue it?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Yeah. In the end, we had to put a charge on it because as with anything you end up with a lot of people just from completely outside the scope. The other thing is, there is a slightly proprietary aspect to this as well. At the moment we charge 200 pounds sterling, for the training, which is quickly recouped when people do their very first work block. The hope is that we attract people who are really motivated and interested to take part, and we hope to maintain that cost into the future.

John: Yeah, that is so reasonable. I mean, I know courses right now in certain consulting fields and so forth, they're $1,500, $2,000, $3,000. So that's a low barrier right there if you have any interest at all.

Dr. Paul Hercock: We don't really make revenue from that. The revenue is from the work we do with clients, it's just about finding really good people to be part of the program.

John: One of the most common companies that employ people, or that use your services, what kind of devices? I'm thinking back to when we first spoke and you started doing some kind of infection control devices or something like that, but I assume that everything has evolved and there are some new products out there. So what are we looking at?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Yeah. We've been really surprised with the variety of devices that we've worked with and also the variety of companies that have come to us for this service. Our initial assumption would be that perhaps we'd be working with companies on the smaller side of the spectrum, and perhaps with less complex devices. And the reason we thought that was that the really big boys, the really big companies would surely have enough resources in-house to be able to meet this demand. And actually, those assumptions have been completely wrong. As I speak to you today, we have five active clients that are stock exchange-listed. We're working with devices of all risk classes. So class one, and the really simple devices, class three might be high-risk implantable devices and everything in between.

We've worked with digital devices. Under the MDR, a piece of software can be a medical device. So we've worked with several of those and that's actually an area that's really starting to grow for reasons we can come to. We've got a real variety. What we try to do now that we're getting bigger and the scope of work is broader, where possible we like to link a project to an associate's area of subject matter expertise. So if we have a gynecological implant, let's say, then if we can link to somebody in the associate's program who's in that clinical field and that's great value for the client, but of course, it means that it's an area of natural understanding for the person doing the work. That's starting to work extremely well, and there's no substitute for that subject matter expertise. It's yet another area where doctors on the program add huge value to our clients. And they love it, they just love it. So that's been really good.

The other thing we have access to because we're so international is different languages as well. And so some of the people on our program speak multiple languages and that can be amazing in really helping to meet client expectations. But yeah, we've had a real variety of all sorts of different companies, devices, clinical fields. And so, if somebody listening to the program is thinking, "Well, I'm in this sector, surely there won't be anything." Then that assumption is probably wrong. There is as much variety as you can imagine.

John: It hasn't matured to the point though, where you say, well, we really need to get someone with orthopedic background or some other background, pretty much anybody can do, although having that specific interest might help enhance it.

Dr. Paul Hercock: Yeah. The specific interest is the cherry on the cake. The core skills are possessed by every doctor. And it's just about understanding how to tweak and adapt those to this particular space. So, there's no need to. I worked in the emergency room, which is a clinical specialty, but I wouldn't say that would give me or someone in that specialty as much in-depth knowledge of orthopedics as an orthopedic surgeon. Of course, it doesn't. But a generalist as I would've considered myself is still well suited to this program. Definitely, we have general practitioners and people from all sorts of different specialties that are very active and happy on the program.

John: Now, here's another question about money. I hadn't thought about this before. And you, of course, can't make any promises, but let's say someone who'd been doing this for a year full-time, they're really into medical devices and this whole process, and they've mastered everything they need to know about MDR. What kind of salary range might they have working a full-time job like that?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Full-time opportunities in the industry, even at entry-level would be six figures sterling, certainly. But even through our program, the level one of the program, people working as members of teams, doing medical writing, literature review projects. We've got several people on the program that are well into five figures now. One person on the program actually takes more per year than I do. Because as a company founder, anything you earn goes straight back into the company. So people are doing pretty well.

But it's really a question of how many projects and complexity of projects and so on. Typically, people can expect four figures per project, with a project taking anywhere between four and six weeks, but that's not a course of continuous working. That might be a couple of hours at the weekend, in the evening, one day, two days a week. This is very much designed to work around somebody's existing career. And if it's getting to the stage where it's dominating life, that's not the intention.

Now, as I said before, we are putting in place a runway all the way through to full-time employment for people who want it. But that's really something for tomorrow through the lens of this particular program. But there's nothing about this program that means you only work for Mantra Systems. It can be used as a springboard to the industry in general. And all we'd ever do is show people by the hand and wish them well. This is not about us keeping hold of people and being possessive. It's just about saying, look, if you want to make a start, this is available to you. And if you enjoy it, we're happy to give you more and more opportunities. And then if it turns into something else, then that's fantastic.

John: Let me ask this question too because I think people just have to have the right expectations. When you're doing this kind of work, especially at the beginning, is it based on completing a particular project, or is it an hourly rate? How do we expect to be submitting our time?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Great question. The way we do this is that for each project, we invite people to a kick-off call, and projects are done as members of teams normally because it's way too much work for one person to do a loan. At the kick-off call, we always ask people to agree to a confidentiality agreement so that the client's interests are protected. We present headline information about the work, what's the device, what are we producing, whether it's a clinical evaluation report or literature review, or something else. We usually have divided the work into specific segments and we'd offer a segment to each person on the call. Once we do that, we agree to a contract, and in the contract will be a set fee for the work. So, people know exactly what they're going to be paid from the outset.

And we try and be really, really transparent. Sometimes we have an idea how many, let's say, literature sources will need to be appraised by each person. We divide them equally and pay people the same as each other. Sometimes we have a project that calls for a lead author. That would be extra responsibility. Normally these are people who've got a bit of experience in the program as well. They've got a few projects under their belt. The lead author might earn a little bit more, but it's not an hourly rate. It's a set fee in advance. And that reflects the way that we charge our clients because we charge them a set fee.

We have had occasions in the past where it becomes clear that initial assumptions about the amount of work were unfair, were perhaps not correct. And in that situation, what happens is that we, as the core team, take some of that excessive way. So we don't expect people to be working too excessively. The program works best if people are happy, feel like they're valued, but not so that they've been given excessive work for the pay. We think we pay very fairly for what people do.

John: I've noticed in the past at least in other forms of medical writing and in research and so forth. There is a learning curve, so you get more efficient over time. Does the same apply here?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Yeah. Massively. The first couple of projects will take longer. For the first couple of projects, we'd probably offer slightly lower remuneration as well because there's more requirement for either the lead author or for the core team, to spend more time reviewing the work. We also like to set up feedback calls as well. We take the time to say, "Look, these bits were great, but the only bit that you need to perhaps look at is these areas here. And these are the reasons why." That applies to post-course work that we require people to do after the training. And it applies to the live client work as well. And so, the idea is that it's educational and constructive, as much as anything else. And then as people gain experience and become essentially autonomous. We certainly have people in the program who produce work of such a high standard. I don't know who would be in a position to critique it really, they essentially are working on their own. To reflect that we can remunerate at a higher rate and that's what we seek to do.

John: Excellent. All right. Well, that is like a lot of different things. When you start out, you're not quite as familiar or it takes you longer to do things. You got to double-check your work. Just like a clinician. It used to be, oh, I can only see a patient an hour, now I'm seeing a patient every 20 minutes and just as efficient and accurate. That's to be expected.

Well, I appreciate you sharing all this information about the program and giving us an update. This has been fantastic. Any last thoughts you want to just say to physicians, either in general that are struggling with clinical or that are thinking about going into some aspect of the medical device industry?

Dr. Paul Hercock: Yeah. I suppose there are a few things that are always in my mind from my own experience. The first thing to say is, I'm going to use the word don't be embarrassed or ashamed even. I don't know if this applies as much in the US, it may do, but certainly, in the UK, there can be a stigma actually, to people that talk about leaving clinical practice. "How can you leave us? We're so busy. How can you even think about that?"

This is your career. And you are the only person that can have that career. It has to be right for you. Take positive steps, and that links to the second comment, which is "Act." Always make sure if you have a desire to do something, one of my favorite quotes ever is from Henry Ford, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." And I think it's brilliant. It applies in this sector so much. So you have to do something, whether it's buying a book, whether it's speaking to somebody in the industry, whatever it is. Hopefully, the program is one part of that.

And don't be afraid to fail or make false starts as well. I had so many false starts and got nowhere for so long, and that's in the "Beyond The Ward" book. But I remember it and feel as though am I ever going to find a way to use my training in another context? And so, just expect that it's not necessarily a smooth process and that's completely normal.

John: Now, those are very wise words, and I will just add my 2 cents as well. Number one, if you get into a nonclinical career, you're still a physician. And can you imagine if you're working in the medical device industry and you're helping to make a medical device safer and maybe more comfortable, whatever it might be, you're going to be helping a lot more patients than seeing them one at a time in your clinic. I'm just reiterating in a different way, what you said. And it's so true, and we've got to get over those myths and those self-limiting beliefs. We all deserve to be happy in our careers. That's for sure.

Dr. Paul Hercock: Definitely. And I think it's so important. That comment about the ability of a clinician in this context to really promote patient safety is massive. And the work that we're doing, looking at clinical evidence in a new way with the skillset of clinicians, this is things like the medical device regulation starting to work properly. This is what it was put there for. Too many people in the industry, too many companies view it as just a barrier to overcome. And it isn't because when clinicians get involved, they can say to manufacturers, "We found this. There might be a problem here or even better, this is an area where your product perhaps isn't working as well as it could do, but look what an enhanced version might look like." And that kind of value is massive to medical device companies. And so, the involvement of clinicians more and more in this sector can only be a positive. Definitely.

John: Absolutely. All right, good. We're doing great work here. It's excellent. Well, Paul, I want to thank you. We're about up with our time for today. I really thank you for taking the time and explaining all this to us and encouraging us as we move forward in whatever nonclinical careers we're doing. I guess with that, I'll just have to say goodbye.

Dr. Paul Hercock: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for having me back on, John. I look forward to seeing you soon.

John: It's my pleasure.

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The post Revisiting How to Prepare For a Great Job at a Medical Device Company – 304 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Highlight These 5 Experiences to Land Your First Pharma Job – 242

John Jurica — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 10:30:22 +0000

Interview with Dr. Laura McKain

This week our guest returns to highlight these 5 experiences you can use to land your first pharma job. She is the founder of the Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook group which has now over 19,000 physicians. And she last joined us in Episode 214 of the PNC Podcast.

Dr. Laura McKain is a board-certified physician with more than 10 years of pharmaceutical industry experience. She received her medical degree from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and completed her training in obstetrics and gynecology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

Her career transitioned to the pharmaceutical industry where she was involved in projects encompassing a broad range of therapeutic areas. For example, she provided medical leadership to a high-profile Women's Health clinical development program at Myovant Science.

She is well-known for running the 19,000-member Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook Group. And she has been coaching physicians and helping them optimize their resumés for many years.

She recently started the Pharma Industry Special Interest Group (PISIG). It is an active learning community for physicians in clinical practice separate from the Facebook group.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

Pharma Industry Special Interest Group (PISIG)

The PISIG enables members to:

learn different pharma roles,
acquire knowledge about foundational industry work,
build skills to be a pharma/biotech candidate,
develop an effective resumé from your training and experience, and
receive expert advice and coaching during a job search.

This learning is acquired during twice-monthly live calls and regularly scheduled recorded seminars.

Highlight These 5 Experiences

These are the five experiences that can be leveraged for the typical practicing physician:

Using evidence-based medicine in practice to assess the risks and benefits of various medical therapies.
Public speaking, such as didactics to students/residents/colleagues, patient educational presentations, and pharma speaker bureaus.
Staying abreast of new therapeutic developments in your specialty.
Involvement in clinical research as an investigator or being a physician who refers patients for participation in clinical trials.
Regularly sharing experiences of adverse drug reactions to pharmaceutical manufacturers or the FDA, or participating in other formal systems for collecting safety information, such as registries or Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) programs.

You can use this information in your resume, during an interview whether it is phone or face to face, and even in your LinkedIn profile. These are things that expand upon what your professional experience is and what your professional experience has included.

Dr. McKain's Advice

“Networking is absolutely critical to making a career transition. I think talking to people who are already in these roles and getting their advice about things to do is really, really important. I think you can run across some of those people in the Facebook group.

“You can certainly find lots of experts on LinkedIn. And I think there's also just a really long list of experts that have appeared on your podcast, John, that people should also look for that are willing and able to help people in their career journey.”

Dr. McKain also reminded us that there are a number of pharma companies that offer fellowships. These drugs safety fellowships and more broad pharma biotech industry fellowships also pay you while you learn. The majority of fellows are offered a job once the fellowship is completed successfully.

During our interview, Laura mentioned that she would provide a written document with examples of phrases to describe your clinical experience in a way that Is relevant to a career in pharma. [Click the link to download that handout for free].

Summary

Most physicians can find experiences from their practices that will demonstrate transferable skills when applying for their first pharma job. And there are some tactics that can be implemented and completed in a short time frame. In that way, physicians will be able to improve their chances of getting that job, without acquiring a new certification or committing to a one- or two-year fellowship.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

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Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription - Highlight These 5 Experiences to Land Your First Pharma Job

- Interview with Dr. Laura McKain

John: The way I look at it, the reason that you come and listen to the podcast is because you want to be inspired by physicians that have made the transition to an unconventional or alternative career and you want to get advice about doing that. So that's why I brought today's guest back to the podcast. She was here back in episode 214, which I think was in September. I'd like to welcome her right now. Hello, Dr. Laura McKain.

Dr. Laura McKain: Hi John. It is a pleasure to join you again.

John: It's always fun to hear from someone who's an expert in career transition in general, but in pharma, it's always nice, because it's a huge demand and there's a lot of listeners that strongly consider going into a pharma nonclinical job but just don't know how to do it. So, I'm happy to have you here.

Dr. Laura McKain: It's a pleasure to be here. That's where I made my leap from clinical medicines to nonclinical career and I love talking about it. So, thank you.

John: Oh, you're welcome. I think some people may remember you from the previous episode, or they may recognize that name because you are the founder of the Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook group, which I looked at recently and I saw you passed another milestone.

Dr. Laura McKain: There are now over 19,000 physicians that are in the group, which is mind boggling in some ways, to me, maybe not in other ways. I know a lot of folks just join the group. We have to check out what's happening or what the possibilities are, but there are a hardcore group of anywhere between 4,000 and 8,000 members on a daily basis that are interacting in the group. And it's a busy and active and productive place, I believe.

John: Yes, it is. And it probably is mind boggling, at least if you look back to the first year when you started it, you probably never thought, "Oh yeah, someday I will have 18,000 - 19,000 people in here." So, it's amazing. I think there's a lot of groups that have come and gone in that timeframe.

Dr. Laura McKain: It's grown so organically. That's the amazing part. Yeah.

John: Well, we talked a little bit about that last time. And I think most of my listeners know about the group and hopefully most of them, if not all of them are members of the groups. Just go to Facebook and look for the Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters, and you'll find it. It's not really hard to find.

But I came across some other things as I was preparing for today. And that was that you have started something else. When I saw what you started, the name of the group, I thought, "Wait, did she do another Facebook group?" But no. Tell us about this other new thing that you started recently.

Dr. Laura McKain: It's not. It is a group that is on a separate platform that is really meant to be a place for physicians who are looking very specifically to transition their career into the pharma biotech world. It's not a course. It's really a forum for physicians to advance their knowledge, build skills and gain experience for a successful career in pharma. And we are a small group, but a mighty group. We are meeting and learning together and supporting each other during career hunting in the pharma biotech industry.

It has been just a wonderful group of physicians, many different therapy areas that are represented. We meet on a periodic basis throughout the month. We do some what we call office hours, which is just coaching about job hunting, interviewing, resume writing, networking, all of those sorts of things.

And then we have a really exciting monthly session called a regulatory seminar where the members of the group actually do some research and they prepare presentations about issues in pharma biotech, where they're learning, but they're also building experience in preparing these things that they can put on their resume actually. And then we also do some work on resumes as a separate session. It's been a great deal of fun and we've had several members that have gotten job offers and are starting a new career. It's been great.

John: That sounds awesome. And when I was looking at what you've got posted on the website, tell us about what your website is right now, before I forget.

Dr. Laura McKain: You can find information about the PISIG group at mckainconsulting.com.

John: Okay. I think there's really these live events. I don't know if they're events, but you're online with these members at least once or twice a month, is that what I'm hearing?

Dr. Laura McKain: We actually have four scheduled meetings a month, and then we also have been doing a couple of popup sessions. For instance, next week, we've got somebody coming to talk to us who has a career in pharma that we haven't heard a lot about. He's going to come and we're going to have a chance to do a Q&A with him. And then the other sessions are live sessions, but if somebody can't attend, everything is recorded so that you can go back and watch at your own leisure.

John: Nice. I thought, well, maybe it was Dr. McKain giving a lecture every few weeks, but no, it sounds like it's very interactive. You have guests come in and they have special expertise. So, if you've made the commitment to jump into pharma, but you're not ready for it, you don't know how to get ready for it, then it is something you should really look into. I know there's a pretty nominal fee, but it just sounds like it would be super valuable.

Dr. Laura McKain: And it really is a way to build your resume, especially if you're a really active participant. We do offer some training that you can put on your resume, but we also offer opportunities for the members to prove that they already have expertise that is transferable to industry. Put down that they participated, that they did a presentation on a certain drug safety issue or that they actually were meeting facilitators, that they have some of the skills that are important in business. It's not about learning. It's also about literally building solid experience that they can leverage.

John: It kind of reminds me of, let's say, like a course or something for medical writing, but as part of that, they actually had to create a portfolio when somebody reviews the writing. So, they're actually creating something that's going to help them apply for the jobs when it comes to that time. And that's why I want to talk to you today, because I want to have you tell us about some of these experiences that one could maybe identify, leverage when applying for a pharma job. Sometimes we have these experiences, but we don't know that they apply. And other times we maybe don't have the experience, but we could spend a few weeks or figure out how to get those experiences while we're preparing to apply for a job. So, that's what I want to segue into now is what about these transferable skills and how do we demonstrate those with experiences we either already have, or maybe can get in the short term. Give us a few examples.

Dr. Laura McKain: Oh, there's so many things. And a lot of the important experience you bring to pharma is your clinical experience. And it's not just saying, "Oh, I take care of patients every day." It's really about being able to articulate the knowledge and the skills that you use to take care of patients to be really specific about it.

For instance, the pharma industry is all about proving that their drugs are safe and effective. And doing clinical trials to demonstrate the benefit risk profile of drugs and building the evidence to support those statements. Well, you already have experience with that every single day. Especially because I think everyone practices evidence-based medicine, which is really looking to science and scientific methods to support the ways that we take care of patients. Just writing on your resume or describing in an interview how you already are very much involved in the use of that evidence generation and the understanding of it. You can simply talk about things about how you always practice according to professional guidelines and what those clinical guidelines are and that they are truly evidence based.

You can talk about things about how you regularly use your formal training, because we all have had some formal training in clinical research methods, how studies are designed, biostatistics and even what we all know about drug development that you use, that knowledge when you personally evaluate the strength of the evidence and how applicable that is to your clinical practice. It's things that you do every day, but it's putting words within that align with what happens in pharma. So that's one example.

John: Now if you were explaining or describing that to somebody or in an interview, I suppose it would be really helpful if somehow you could use the language around like evidence-based medicine, because there are levels of evidence and you're understanding of those levels, which I'm not really at this point able to list, but I mean to say level A versus E or whatever the vernacular is. I did the study and I would imagine too, that in a physician who uses a certain class of drugs a lot and particularly maybe one or two, I suppose, particularly if they're newer drugs, but I can think of cardiologists. I can think of pediatricians that use drugs for ADD or that kind of thing. They're really experts in those drugs. And then, like you said, they could have that conversation about their experiences and how they decided to choose those drugs. That's what I'm hearing.

Dr. Laura McKain: Exactly. Don't all of us pretty much try to stay up to date with the latest, greatest of what's going on in their area of expertise? We read journals. We attend medical conferences. We read safety reports that come out when there's news about some new unidentified risk associated with a therapy that our patients may be using. We stay up to date on all of that and it directly relates to what's happening in what the pharma industry is all about. And we're already experts at that. We're already doing that. So, you just have to remind the people, the person who might be reading your resume or the person that you're speaking to, in the context of an interview that although I'm not working in pharma, I'm using that evidence that's generated there every single day in my day-to-day work.

John: What other kind of ideas do you have, or have you discussed maybe in your group, for example, where you could get someone who wasn't necessarily involved with clinical trials, but could demonstrate other experiences that would satisfy the recruiters?

Dr. Laura McKain: Well, being able to communicate scientific information is very important in pharma biotech. And I think all of us are quite accomplished at that in patient counseling that we do and mentioning how we discuss the risks and benefits and the medical decisions that go into our prescribing practices. But also, a lot of us are involved in more formal ways of communicating information like public speaking. There are so many different forums that we may use public speaking skills, where we communicate scientific information and it's worth mentioning those things on your resume. Whether you are doing didactic lectures for medical students or residents, formal or informal, you could even talk about bedside rounds. You talk a lot about medical evidence and medical decision making in the context of those rounds, but lectures that you may give to students. Maybe you don't, maybe you don't do that.

There are other opportunities for you to prove that you have reasonable public speaking skills. And I would say in this day and age, it is really easy to do that. I had a physician I was working with recently that was really looking to get into industry and she wanted to demonstrate that she was a good speaker. And so, she produced some videos talking about how she counsels patients about whether to choose COVID vaccine or not. She posted them on Facebook and then actually took them off there and put them onto YouTube and then put a line in her resume with a link to where the videos were so that the hiring manager could actually just click on the link and see what a great speaker she was there. You can make your own opportunities for some of these things. And it's not hard to do in this day and age. Creative but very, very useful. And she got hired because they could see that she was really great at communicating information.

John: It's funny because probably the other 50 people applying for that job had done something similar, but they just had never taken the next step of putting it on Facebook, putting on YouTube, recording it in the first place. They might have done the exact same kind of presentation, but they didn't present it in a way that a recruiter or a manager, hiring manager, whatever, sees it.

Dr. Laura McKain: The other thing you can do, those videos can be useful because instead of giving the same speech over and over, you could hit play, walk out of the room, finish your note, come back in and say, "Now what questions do you have about this?" So it could actually be a time saver too, if you think about it that way.

John: Yeah. For patient education.

Dr. Laura McKain: Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

John: Yeah. Very interesting. Okay.

Dr. Laura McKain: And then talking with your peers. There are opportunities there. How many of y'all participate in pharmaceutical speakers' bureaus? There's a product that you really believe in, tell the drug rep that visits your office to put you in with your regional medical science liaison and say, "Hey, is there a speaker's bureau I would love to participate in?" And it's a great opportunity to gain experience speaking to your peers. Physician to physician type communication of scientific information. It goes right on your resume.

I know for a fact that that counted as industry experience when I got my first job, because I was a huge advocate of the HPV vaccine and I had signed up to be on the speaker's bureau. And it was enough to demonstrate that I actually had industry experience. Those opportunities are there. Sometimes they come to you to be a speaker, but sometimes you need to go to them to say, "I'd like to do that." But it's worth pursuing.

John: Yeah. I have colleagues and friends that are actually on different speakers' bureaus. And we'll have a medical society meeting, we'll invite them to present to us. And obviously they're going through all the data on the drug, what the studies showed, any biases it might have been involved in, or confound any factors, all the statistical stuff, which would, to me, seem to be important if you're going into some kind of pharma job.

Dr. Laura McKain: And if you get on one of those bureaus, they do fabulous training and teach you.

John: That's good too.

Dr. Laura McKain: They do. They teach you how to present the data. And if you have questions or the things you don't understand, they take the time to explain it. But it's a learning opportunity also.

John: Now you've got my mind going here in other ways to apply that. Are there other things you can think of where someone who's been in practice can leverage some experience they've had?

Dr. Laura McKain: Well of course, going into pharma, they oftentimes like to hire people that have been involved in clinical research. And some of us have, and a lot of us have not. But even if you are not specifically involved in clinical research, one thing that you can do is you can become aware of the types of clinical research that is going on and the conditions that you commonly take care of. And potentially you can refer patients to participate in clinical trials.

And you can say that in the context of an interview, or you can even put it on your resume. Regularly refers patients to participate in clinical trials or that you have associations that you interact with the folks that are doing the trials. Because they're everywhere. Clinical trials are absolutely everywhere and they're easy to find. It's so easy to identify what clinical trials are happening in conditions that you commonly take care of by simply going to clinicaltrials.gov, putting in a condition of interest. And you get an immediate list of all the development work that's going on in those conditions and a list of sites where the studies are ongoing.

You can actually use that as a networking opportunity. You can go to the site that's nearest to you and ask to speak to the principal investigator, to learn more about the study, and how you might refer patients to get their experience. And it could actually become a good networking opportunity for you also. So, it's something that all of us can do. And we should be aware of the clinical development that's going on, and to be able to demonstrate that as you're seeking a new job.

John: I remember at the hospital where I was a CMO, we had studies going on. They were part of obviously larger national studies, but we had just a few physicians who were always interested in being involved in those. And so, even if you're not the person doing that now, obviously they would have an issue maybe. But if you're in your clinic and you're sending patients, because you think they fit that study and maybe you're interacting with that local PI, if that's what they're called, investigator, then yeah, you can connect with them, and you can connect with medical monitors or whoever and just learn about the vernacular. And I never thought about that.

Dr. Laura McKain: About the eligibility criteria for the study, you can learn about how they're studying, what the endpoints are that they're going to be looking at to demonstrate efficacy, all of those sorts of things. It is a great learning opportunity and it shows that you have true interest in the industry, even if you're not the one that's specifically doing the work.

John: Anything else? What else have you got for my listeners?

Dr. Laura McKain: For folks that are interested in drug safety, one of the things that you can easily talk about is how you already possess a knowledge of the risks associated with a large number of pharmacologic therapies, because we all do. We know what the side effects or the adverse events associated with drugs are.

But you can even take it one step further, and actually, we all have public health responsibility to do this is that if you ever see a patient that have an adverse drug reaction, especially one that is unusual, you can report that event to either the manufacturer or to the FDA using a MedWatch form and just Google MedWatch and you can figure out how to do it. And it's worth saying that you regularly participate in the formal systems for collecting safety information on pharmaceutical products or even devices because they take adverse event reports for medical devices also.

And it shows that you understand something about the systems that are in place and that you participate in that reporting to provide the appropriate clinical information that the manufacturers and the FDA need to make decisions about whether we fully understand the risks associated with those particular products.

The VAERS system. The vaccine adverse event reporting system is another one. Patient who has had an unusual vaccine, you can report that through the VAERS system. And a lot of people don't know this, but it's public health. You're making these reports in the interest of public health. So, you actually do not need the patient's consent to make a report to the manufacturer or the agency. That it's actually one of those loopholes in the HIPAA rules that allow you to anonymize the data, but share potentially important public health information for the greater good. And it shows that you understand industry and that you're already doing drug safety because you are involved in those reports.

I gave a talk last week on pregnancy drug safety at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I had an audience of probably about 50 people at this particular lecture, and there was not a single person that had ever submitted an adverse event report to the FDA. And I was just shocked by that. And I think it's because people don't know how easy it is to do and that we are permitted to do that as physicians. So I encourage that also.

John: That sounds like it'd be great to do that. I think it's almost like when there's a crime and there's a hundred people looking at it, and no one takes action because someone else probably will report that.

Dr. Laura McKain: Exactly. Yeah.

John: So, it never gets done.

Dr. Laura McKain: It's not hard to do.

John: Which makes you wonder, whatever's reported must be just a percentage of what really happens.

Dr. Laura McKain: Well, unfortunately, probably most of the reports come from patients and they don't include the rich medical information that the agency really wants to fully evaluate those events. So, we, as physicians, should be doing more of that type of reporting in my opinion.There are other opportunities also that you can actually participate in safety registries as a physician. I was talking about pregnancy drug safety but did you know that there are pregnancy drug exposure registries where you can help patients to participate in a registry when they've had an inadvertent pregnancy drug exposure?

There are registries that are run to look at the outcomes of those pregnancies to gather more safety information since we don't specifically test drugs on pregnant women. But as a physician participating in a registry like that, it could also show that you have some pharma experience. And they're really easy to do. The data collection is simple. It doesn't take a lot of time.

REMS programs. Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy programs for drugs that have been identified to have significant risks. Oftentimes to be able to prescribe certain drugs with known risks, you have to be a registered prescriber who's been fully educated on the risks of the drug and made a promise to do adverse event reporting if something comes up with a patient that you've prescribed for. It's another way to demonstrate that you have some pharma experience. So, all of it's available in the context of usual clinical care.

John: Well, I like this last part you've been talking about the safety, because if I can imagine, if I'm spending time, I'm reporting and I'm part of a registry, then I'm going to understand all these rules and regs about how to report it and what actually is an adverse reaction. That has to have some weight when you're trying to convince somebody in pharma that you know what you're talking about.

Dr. Laura McKain: Absolutely.

John: That is so good. I would think too, anyone that has a lot of exposure and use of one or two major drugs and does many of the things you've talked about involving those drugs, why not, since you're supposed to be the expert in many ways when you're practicing in that field and using the drugs.

Well, there's a lot here now. I'm going to have a hard time keeping track of all this. I'll have to listen to this episode myself a few times. We were talking about maybe you're going to put something together that we can use to kind of summarize some of these issues.

Dr. Laura McKain: Absolutely. I'm going to offer the listeners a little handout about some of the things that we've talked about today. And in the handout, I will not only include sort of the activities that you're already involved in or could be involved in but I'm going to also include some sample language that might be helpful when you're writing your resume or actual language that you might use in the context of an interview to help you sell yourself and to sell the experience that you already have to gland that pharma biotech job.

John: See, that's a good point too. I almost forgot. I should have asked you how and where we use this information? So, you've just said it. In your resume, during an interview, whether it's phone or live face to face, and then maybe somehow to put it in your LinkedIn profile.

Dr. Laura McKain: Even in your LinkedIn profile, sure. These are things that expand upon what your professional experience is and what your professional experience has included. Those are perfect places to put them.

John: And if I remember correctly, and maybe it's something of yours I read or elsewhere. If you're putting these things into a resume, they should be kind of front and center if the things are pertinent to the job description. They shouldn't be buried on page three somewhere.

Dr. Laura McKain: Absolutely. They should be a part of you describing your current clinical practice, your current professional experience. And it can be one of the bullets in that section where you talk about what your skills and accomplishments have been in your current position.

John: That's good to know. That's fantastic. This is like a little master class here, a little 20-30-minute master class. Okay. Well, I think we got enough to chew on for today. Laura, I really appreciate that. Any final advice for my listeners? Some of them are very early in the process. Some are sort of trying to figure out what industry to go into. Any advice you want to give them besides what you've already told us today?

Dr. Laura McKain: I think networking is absolutely critical to making a career transition. I think talking to people who are already in these roles and getting their advice about things to do is really, really important. I think you can run across some of those people in the Facebook group. You can certainly find lots of experts on LinkedIn. And I think there's also just a really long list of experts that have appeared on your podcast, John, that people should also look for that are willing and able to help people in their career journey.

John: That's absolutely true. Now here's a question from left field, but as you were talking, it occurred to me talking about getting mentors and coaches and networking. Have you ever heard of anybody shadowing someone in pharma?

Dr. Laura McKain: I haven't experienced that nor have I really seen people do internships or anything like that. However, there are a number of companies that offer fellowships. Drugs safety fellowships, or even more broad pharma biotech industry fellowships. That is an opportunity for people to learn about the industry, to be taught about the industry and actually to be developed to hopefully be a future full-time employee. There are a couple of those that are out there and I've worked with a couple clients that have completed those fellowships.

John: And you get paid while you're doing that, right? It's not a lot of money, but at least you're getting paid so you can survive while you're doing your fellowship.

Dr. Laura McKain: Not only do you get paid, but successful completion I would say 99% of the time results in a job offer.

John: Nice. Okay. I shouldn't forget about that. There aren't that many out there, but they do exist and you can land something like that. Well, we're going to stop there. We could go on forever. I really, again, appreciate you for being here today, Laura. And I will have that link for the listeners that kind of goes through and how to do the language and some of these tactics or demonstrating your experience and your transferable skills. With that, I'll just have to say goodbye and see you next time.

Dr. Laura McKain: Thanks John. It was a pleasure.

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The post Highlight These 5 Experiences to Land Your First Pharma Job – 242 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

How to Find a Job in Pharma That You Love – 184

John Jurica — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 14:30:24 +0000

Interview with Dr. Mario Mendoza

This week Dr. Mario Mendoza helps you find a job in pharma or the medical device industry.

Mario is an anesthesiologist, chemist, biotech medical affairs consultant, and biotech careers coach. He shares what he has learned from 13-plus years of experience in patient care, drug/device clinical development and medical affairs, and FDA regulation of medical devices.

Mario also advises early-stage biotech companies as an Executive-in-Residence at the Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University. There, he provides his expertise in branding, clinical development, medical affairs, and regulatory requirements for drugs and devices. And he is the founder of a charitable organization called Lifeundocumented.org, his calling, and mission.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Learning How To Find A Job in Pharma

Mario provided a fairly comprehensive look at pharma jobs. And he shared his advice for finding a job in the pharma and medical devices industry.

To bolster our understanding, he went into detail in how jobs in Medical Affairs Departments fit together. He also shared information about pharmacovigilance (sometimes called patient safety), sales, and clinical development.

He described how FDA, CDC, and NIH fellowships can be used to prepare you for a job in Industry. Mario personally completed an FDA fellowship, which help set him up for his first job in the pharma industry.

Coaching and Consulting

Now Mario has created a life and career that he really enjoys. He provides consulting advice to early-stage biotech companies through the Center for Biotechnology at Stoney Brook University. And he founded his own business called BorderBioMed. Through it, he offers drug and medical device clinical development and medical affairs strategy, and medical device regulatory pathway strategy. He also contributes key opinion leader, medical science liaison, marketing, investor, and payer medical content and messaging development.

The most important thing is really to bring value to others. – Dr. Mario Mendoza

On the career coaching side, he advises physicians and other professionals to help them find and excel in the pharma, biotech, and medical device industries.

Summary

There are plentiful jobs for physicians in “Industry.” And in today's episode, Dr. Mario Mendoza generously shares his expertise. So be sure to take notes, and listen through a second time if necessary. And use the links to learn more about what Mario is doing and consider his coaching services if you're serious about moving into this field.

Dr. Mendoza will be one of the panelists at the upcoming Physician Helping Physicians Conference starting on March 5, 2021. Go to the Virtual Conferences page and you’ll see his smiling face along with a couple of dozen other nontraditional career experts. It's a great way to learn about nonclinical jobs and obtain great expert coaching. If you register, be sure to say hello and tell Michelle Mudge-Riley that I sent you!

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How to Prepare for a Job in the Medical Device Industry – 169

John Jurica — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 11:00:06 +0000

Interview with Dr. Paul Hercock

In today’s interview, we build on the discussion in Episode 168 by speaking with Dr. Paul Hercock from the United Kingdom about the Medical Device Industry.

Dr. Hercock is an Emergency Medicine physician who started out working for the National Health Service.

He graduated from Nottingham Medical School in 2002. After initially training as a surgeon he pivoted to a career in Emergency Medicine. He is a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and also has a law degree from Nottingham Law School.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. Economist Magazine recently ranked the UT Haslam Business School #1 in the world as the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

By joining the University of Tennessee physician executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills needed to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Entering the Medical Device Industry

While working as a Physician, Paul became increasingly interested in medical devices. He set up and established Mantra Medical, a medical device start-up focused on improving infection control. He later made a move into a full-time position in the medical device industry to work as a medical advisor.

Paul is now a self-employed medical entrepreneur, combining work on his medical device start-up with the building of Mantra Systems, a consultancy business that provides medical and regulatory support to other medical device companies.

Writing His Book

His journey from clinical practice to Industry prompted him to write a book for doctors titled Beyond The Ward: A Doctor's Guide to Careers Outside the NHS (this is an Amazon affiliate link).

If I've learned one thing, it's that if you step outside clinical practice, you trade stability for flexibility… you then realize there are so many things you can do. – Dr. Paul Hercock

His book can be found in major bookstores. It should be part of your library if you’re just getting started – alongside 50 Nonclinical Careers for Physicians by Sylvie Stacy and Heidi Moawad’s Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine (also Amazon affiliate links). If you don’t own those three books, then you’re not serious about pursuing a new career that builds on your medical background.

Summary

Paul Hercock gives a great overview of his experiences working in the medical device industry. He also describes his efforts to create two businesses in Industry, and he provides welcome inspiration in today's interview.

If you need more detailed education about finding a job in Industry, I recommend you purchase a copy of Beyond the Ward: A Doctor's Guide to Careers Outside the NHS (this is an Amazon affiliate link).

Links for Today's Episode:

Mantra Medical
Mantra Systems
Beyond The Ward: A Doctor's Guide to Careers Outside the NHS (Amazon affiliate link)
Paul Hercock's Website Beyond the Ward
Paul Hercock's LinkedIn Profile

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The Nonclinical Career Academy Membership Program recently added a new MasterClass!

I've created 17 courses and placed them all in an exclusive, low-cost membership program. The program provides an introduction to dozens of nontraditional careers, with in-depth lessons on several of them. It even includes my full MSL Course. There is a money-back guarantee, so there is no risk to signing up. And I'll add more courses each month.

And to make it even easier, listeners to this podcast can get a one-month Trial for only $1.00, using the Coupon Code TRIAL at nonclinicalphysicians.com/joinnca. The $1.00 introduction to the Academy ends on November 28, 2020.

Thanks to our sponsor…

Thanks to the UT Physician Executive MBA program for sponsoring the show. It’s an outstanding, highly rated, MBA program designed for working physicians. It is just what you need to prepare for that fulfilling, well-paying career. You can find out more at nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

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The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. It should not be construed as medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career.

The post How to Prepare for a Job in the Medical Device Industry – 169 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

How to Claim Your First Job in Industry – 168

John Jurica — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 11:00:34 +0000

Interview with Dr. Nerissa Kreher

In this week's interview, we take our first deep dive into how to land your first job in Industry.

Dr. Nerissa Kreher is a pediatric endocrinologist and the Chief Medical Officer of a biotech company. Today she helps us understand what the term “Industry” means in the context of nonclinical physician careers.

Then she lists many of the positions available for physicians in the pharma and medical device industries, and the backgrounds needed to land them.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

Nerissa received her medical degree from East Carolina University. She then completed her pediatric residency and pediatric endocrinology fellowship at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Nerissa transitioned into the biotech/pharma industry early in her career and brings 15 years of experience working in the field. She started in Medical Affairs as a Medical Director. Then she strategically moved to another company to gain Clinical Development experience. She has worked in small to large biotech/pharma organizations in both private and public companies.

From medical director to “global lead,” she has worked in a variety of positions. She now serves as the chief medical officer of a biotechnology company. Along the way, she also completed an MBA from Northeastern University.

Helping Others Find Their First Job in Industry

She is passionate about her work and wants to help other physicians understand the possibilities for physicians in Industry. She has even created a coaching program to help physicians transition from clinical practice to pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotech companies. It is called Industry MD Coach

It's really important that we give ourselves credit for all of the years of education that we have… there is experience there to translate into an Industry role. – Dr. Nerissa Kreher

She uses a comprehensive approach to helping physicians find rewarding jobs in Industry. It includes a personality assessment, training in basic skill sets, resume writing services, assistance negotiating, and salary and benefits review.

Summary

As a gift to PNC Podcast Listeners, Dr. Kreher is offering a 10% discount on any service you purchase from IndustryMD Coach. If you’re considering a career in Industry, go to industrymdcoach.com, look around, and then hit the “Take the First Step” button. When you select and pay for the coaching package you desire, enter the following Coupon code for the 10% discount: Q5A18F1

Links for Today's Episode:

Industry MD Coach
10% Discount Code: Q5A18F1
Dr. Nerissa Kreher on LinkedIn

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Thanks to our sponsor…

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The post How to Claim Your First Job in Industry – 168 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

industry Archives - NonClinical Physicians

First Consider The Most Popular Full-Time Careers

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For Podcast Listeners

Three Most Popular Full-time Careers for Physicians Seeking a Change

Your Network is Your Net Worth: Resources to Help You Succeed

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Priceless Advice From an Expert in The BioPharma Industry

Interview with Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley – 364

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The Power of Relationships in Career Transitions

Priceless Advice from an Expert

Encouragement for Aspiring Biopharma Professionals

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Embrace Stage 2 of the 12 Month Roadmap to a New Career – 312

Months 2 Through 4

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Navigating Your Nonclinical Career Path: A 12-Month Roadmap

Navigating Stage Two: Building Networks and Enhancing Credentials

Join a Professional Organization

Start Networking

Explore Certifications and Degrees

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Landing Your First Pharma Industry Job May Be Easier Than You Think – 311

What I've Learned from My Guests

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Compelling Advantages of Nonclinical Pharma Careers

Exploring Opportunities and Roles in Pharma Companies

Summary

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Revisiting How to Prepare For a Great Job at a Medical Device Company – 304

Interview with Dr. Paul Hercock

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How to Prepare for a Great Job at a Medical Device Company

A Fantastic Nonclinical Career

Summary

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Highlight These 5 Experiences to Land Your First Pharma Job – 242

Interview with Dr. Laura McKain

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Highlight These 5 Experiences

Dr. McKain's Advice

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How to Find a Job in Pharma That You Love – 184

Interview with Dr. Mario Mendoza

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Learning How To Find A Job in Pharma

Coaching and Consulting

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