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.

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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.

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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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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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Many of the links that I refer you to, and that you’ll find in the show notes, are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you, that I have personally used or am very familiar with.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide 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 First Consider The Most Popular Full-Time Careers appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Presentation by Dr. Maria Abunto – 352

Today's episode presents an excerpt from Dr. Maria Abunto's masterclass on securing your first nonclinical MSL job from the 2023 Nonclinical Career Summit.

Dr. Maria Abunto, a senior manager of medical science liaisons (MSLs) at Exact Sciences, shares her journey and insights into the MSL role. Dr. Abunto's insights focus on relationship-building, continuous learning, and strategic networking. Whether you are considering a career change or seeking to understand the MSL role better, this post offers valuable guidance and inspiration.

Our Show 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 love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Our Episode Sponsor

Dr. Debra Blaine is a physician like many of you, and her greatest challenge was fear. The whole concept of leaving clinical medicine was terrifying. But she is so much happier now as a professional writer and a coach. According to Debra, “It’s like someone turned the oxygen back on.” If fear is part of your struggle, too, she would like to help you push through those emotional barriers to go after the life you really want. Click this link to schedule a free chat. Or check out her website at allthingswriting.com/resilience-coaching.

From Academia to Industry: Dr. Maria Abunto's Journey

Dr. Maria Abunto transitioned from academia to industry, bringing experience from the NIH, Stryker, and now Exact Sciences. Her journey began with a master's degree in public health, where she developed a passion for public service. Driven to make a broader impact, she ventured into the world of medical science liaisons (MSLs).

Dr. Abunto shares her personal story, highlighting the importance of investing in oneself and continuously seeking opportunities to learn and grow. Her transition underscores the value of networking and finding mentors who can guide and support one's career path.

The MSL Role: Responsibilities and Rewards

The MSL role established over 50 years ago is vital in the biopharma industry. MSLs are responsible for building relationships with key opinion leaders (KOLs) and educating them on the science and advancements in treatment related to a company's product. This communication-focused role requires a strong scientific background, typically a doctorate, and excellent interpersonal skills.

Dr. Abunto explains that MSLs work remotely, managing their schedules and traveling to meet with KOLs. The role offers significant rewards, including high compensation, flexible work arrangements, and the opportunity to make a meaningful impact in healthcare.

Finding Your First Nonclinical MSL Job: Tips and Strategies

Breaking into the MSL role can be challenging but achievable with the right preparation and strategy. Dr. Abunto advises aspiring MSLs to focus on matching their skills and experiences with specific therapeutic areas and companies.

Networking is crucial. Attending industry conferences, joining professional organizations like the MSL Society, and connecting with key MSL leaders can open doors to opportunities. Additionally, enrolling in relevant training programs can enhance one's qualifications. Dr. Abunto also emphasizes the importance of building quality professional contacts and researching target companies to stand out in the competitive MSL job market.

Summary

To learn more you should explore the MSL Society website, which offers information and training opportunities for aspiring Medical Science Liaisons. To connect with Maria check out her profile on LinkedIn, where she is likely active and engaging with the medical and scientific community. For detailed presentations and insights from the 2023 Nonclinical Careers Summit, including Dr. Abunto's complete talk, visit the 2023 Summit’s Official Page.

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

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Maria Abunto's LinkedIn Page
• Why You Should Celebrate International MSL Day -135
• Medical Science Liaison Is Still a Fantastic Pharma Job – 261
• Complete the Journey to Your First Fabulous MSL Job – 277
• MSL Society Website
• Purchase the Complete 12-Lecture Package from the 2023 Nonclinical Career Summit
• Purchase Your All Action Pass Videos and Bonuses from the 2024 Summit
• Dr. Debra Blaine's Coaching Services

Download This Episode:

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

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 352

Find Your Great First Nonclinical MSL Job

- Interview with Dr. Maria Abunto

John: Dr. Maria Abunto is the senior manager of medical science liaisons at ExactSciences, a molecular diagnostics company specializing in the detection of early-stage cancers. Before she worked there, she was global medical science liaison for Stryker. And she previously worked as an epidemiologist and investigator for the NIH and as a medical scientific expert on the IRB at a large children's hospital. She holds a master's degree in public health from the University of Pittsburgh and she completed a medical degree at the University of the East in Manila, Philippines. All right.

Today's podcast episode is the first half of her presentation from the 2023 Non-Clinical Career Summit in which she describes the MSL biopharma role, why it is a popular non-clinical career, and how to land your first MSL job. So let's jump in as she describes how she landed her first role as an MSL.

Dr. Maria Bunto: I'm Maria Bunto and I'll give a talk about coming from academia to industry or going from the ivory tower to the dark side. So the purpose of my presentation is to educate you on what is a medical science liaison or MSL. And if there's one thing I'd like for you to remember about being an MSL, it's not really bad at all. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's one of the best jobs in the world and I'm fortunate to have transitioned to a non-clinical career that I love. And hopefully my talk will resonate with some of you.

So this is my disclaimer and the views and opinions are my own and do not reflect that of exact sciences, my employer, and I have no financial relationships to disclose.

So here's an outline of what I'll be talking about today. I'll start with a background about myself and my journey of how I transitioned. Then I'll talk about the MSL role, who MSLs are, and what compensation looks like, and then highlight the pros and cons of being an MSL. Then I'll take a deeper dive into how to become an MSL and briefly talk about the different career paths. I'll provide some information about the MSL society, their training and other resources.

So I'm just gonna go ahead and go into my why. This is my story and I'd like to spend just a few minutes and take you through my journey. Everyone has their unique experiences. So I think it's really important to connect with all of you, the audience out there who's interested and just figuring out what your why is. and why you want to transition. So as a physician, I have had previous experiences as a medical director, supervising operations for a busy family medicine practice. And during that time, I saw countless health disparities and underserved populations without any support or insurance. And so chronic disease is being passed down from generation to generation. And it's just one day that I just had an epiphany at a health fair and we were conducting where I realized I didn't wanna do this anymore, but rather just really focusing on understanding really what's going on here and what's happening upstream in a lot of these marginalized populations and how can we prevent that domino effect downstream?

So I always knew that I wanted to be more than just a medical director. I really wanted to affect populations on a greater level and really make that difference on even a more broader impact. while continuing to develop myself professionally. So identified public health problems, but I also realized the solution really starts with me. So the decision, this became my why. But how I was going to do this was the big question is how was I going to reinvent myself? So I knew my strengths were in public service and building connections and relationships. But I also realized during the soul searching that in order to do this, I needed to up my game and invest in myself. So my journey really begins in 2016 when I went back to graduate school and obtained my master in public health at the University of Pittsburgh. So this was a really great decision and wise investment because I needed to focus and reinvent myself. So I really worked hard to increase my knowledge and skillset, and I discovered that I absolutely loved learning as an adult student, but I didn't know what I would be doing after graduation, but I kept going and I didn't stop and I kept looking for opportunities.

It's in academia where I found an opportunity to expand my network. build my meaningful connections and relationships. So at the bottom right of the corner of the screen here, I'm pictured at graduation with my program director and long time mentor, Dr. David Feingold and the former Dean of Public Health, Dr. Donald Burke. And like I mentioned, I knew my strengths were not only in relationship building, but in public service. So at the top right is where I immersed myself in the Center for Health Equity Initiatives, such as Take the Health Professional to the People Day. So that's where I would conduct blood pressure screenings at barbershops and salons and inner cities around Pittsburgh. And you see, after all these years, I'm still volunteering in a community and giving back. It's been about a decade now. And these are opportunities like creating these long-term relationships with mentors. I also had an awesome mentor during grad school, who after graduation, I joined him at his lab at the National Institutes of Health and Population Sciences is at the NIH. And that's me pictured there on the left-hand corner. at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. That's really how I got into research because not only my connections, but my public health experience.

So it was at the NIH where I said, I mentioned that I conducted colorectal cancer research and that I became an epidemiologist there, attended all conferences and network like crazy. And I think that's where in 2017, I joined the MSL Society and became really active. And I attended the three-day live MSL communication and presentation skills training. There I learned as much as I could about being an MSL because I didn't really know I've heard about it, but it was really when I learned more about it that it appealed to me. And it was at the MSL Society Women's Conference in 2018 where I met a physician MSL. She introduced me to her career coach. And I immediately consulted that coach. So I wanted to realize that coach was also a physician. I wanted to really understand, is this a good fit for me? How hard is it to break into the role? She really helped me after 10 months. I landed my first job in industry. It was because of a connection she had, another physician who was hiring at a medical device company. And I know that after working there my first week, I just knew that I loved it and it was such a good fit. So in a nutshell, That was my career path and I'd have to say, I continue to solidify these relationships in the roles with MSLs and MSL leaders who continuously inspire me.

So now let's talk about the MSL role. The MSL was first established in 1967 by the Upjohn company and has existed for more than 50 years. And it continues to evolve in line with the changing diseases, treatment landscapes and healthcare trends. So MSLs were created in response to the need for a professionally trained staff to build rapport with influential physicians known in the pharma industry as key opinion leaders or KOLs and then thought leaders in various therapeutic areas of research. So MSLs became a part of medical affairs department where their activities revolve around building relationships with KOLs, but it's important to note that in the US the MSL is not a commercial role. or a promotional one. It's also not a science role, but rather a communication role through science, where discussions revolve around the research and the data behind the drug or product. So in the past, an advanced clinical degree was not required. However, in the late 1980s and 90s, a number of companies began to require MSLs to hold a doctorate degree, such as an MD, PharmD, or PhD, and now even Doctorate of Nursing, or DNP. As the MSL role grew over the years, the doctorate degrees became the new standard. Many companies require these credentials because MSLs are often viewed as more credible and it helps really establish those peer-to-peer relationships with doctors who you will be working with. And it's a growing field, which is a good sign. It's growing at a rate of about 10% a year with at least one out of four MSLs being hired without previous MSL experience. So over the years, companies have used various titles for the role and Medical Science Liaison or MSL is not the only name, it is called, for example, Pfizer calls MSL's field medical directors or FMDs and Amgen refers to them as regional leaders. So I'd also like to point out that obtaining a master degree may not likely make you a better applicant unless that degree really strengthens your match to the specific MSL role. But we have seen, and also on our team, we've had people that had master degrees and go on to also get a PhD while they're working for an industry company. So what is the purpose of the MSO role? The primary purpose is to be a scientific or disease state expert in the therapeutic area of the company product or pipeline.

So what is an MSL? Well, an MSL is one who holds a clinical degree in the life sciences with extensive experience in clinical medicine and or research. A doctor degree is preferred, but I've seen, as I mentioned, MSLs with master degree break into the role. There are more PhDs and PharmDs or MDs. And lately we've seen a lot of DERS practitioners and also physician assistants transitioning to become MSLs. So an MSL is employed by a pharma, biotech or medical device company. And He or she is a subject matter expert in a particular therapeutic area, such as oncology, hematology, and immunology. Now oncology and immunology, they lead the way with growth rates of about 31% and 28% respectively. And MSL's primary function is to educate on the science and advances in the treatment of the drug or product in a fair and balanced manner.

So it's a remote job where one works from home, one has a home office, and arranges meetings with KOLs or healthcare providers, either in person or virtually. So this diagram is event diagram and really illustrates what the role of the MSL encompasses. So the circle on the left contains all of the people with the science degrees, which is the PharmD, MD, PhDs. And these are people like yourself who have the proven science skills and have spent hours and hours conducting research or practicing science. Now the circle on the right This contains the people with communication relationship driven skills. So these are the soft skills. And that includes emotional intelligence and self-awareness. The circle on the left is necessary but not sufficient to land an MSL role. However, the circle on the right is full of people you want to be with, but is no good without the technical science skills found on the left. The silver middle, the sliver in the middle is where the two circles intersect and that's why the MSL talent is so hard to come by. However, as mastering the science and having degree is found in every candidate, what's often overlooked are the soft skills and the communication skills, as I mentioned, which actually may even be more important here. So MSLs are excellent communicators and this quality is really what is what makes one stand out. It's one thing to know the science and it's quite another to communicate the science. And if you think of the communication rolled through science, that's what makes an awesome MSL.

What are some of the responsibilities of an MSL? The primary responsibility is to establish and maintain relationships with KOLs who are influential doctors or healthcare providers. So since MSLs are subject matter experts of the science behind the products, engagements with KOLs involve discussions about the disease state and can involve education through presentations. An MSL first starts by KOL mapping in their territory and identifying who the key influencers are. and who are important players to get in front of as they begin strategizing and building relationships. A typical day involves proactively reaching out to a list of KOLs, and the MSL will introduce himself or herself through an email or a phone call. And then introductions can also happen at conferences or through your commercial sales force. The goal is to be able to schedule a one-on-one meeting, engage in conversation, and begin to build those relationships. And then from these conversations, may find that the KOL is interested in conducting a clinical trial that aligns with the pharma company or the KOL may request more education on the pivotal study about a company product recently launched. And whatever the outcome, collecting insights are important information to bring back to the company because insights are considered currency to the overall business, especially competitive intelligence insights. And sometimes these meetings are in-person and require travel. And so travel days are an average about two to three days per week. and are structured around the KOL schedule. But you can also modify your schedule, really makes sense to you. If you think according to the metrics of the company or of your team, if you can actually meet those metrics in two to three meetings, half virtual, half in person, minimal travel, that can be accomplished too. So it's really about you being the CEO or you managing and being the manager of your territory.

So here's a survey that was conducted by the MSL Society in 2020 and showing the many different activities that MSLs participate in and can be found on the website, which is free for all members. And also, I think there's also free resources for non-members. And as you can see, majority of the MSLs, over 98%, they manage KOL relationships. And approximately 90% of MSL surveyed said that they attend medical conferences and also provide education through scientific presentations. MSLs focus on meetings with those who are experts and thought leaders because they are influencing how others practice or conduct research using the product or the drug treatment. And an MSL would do that through a peer-to-peer scientific exchange. And the scientific exchange has two aspects to it. The first aspect of the role is a therapeutic area subject matter expert. So disease state awareness and the knowledge of the competitive landscape and the company specific products and pipeline. The second aspect is bringing value that the KOL wants. And sometimes they don't need the MSL scientific acumen. So sometimes what they want are opportunities. For instance, opportunities like a grant for an investigator led study or clinical trial. And sometimes KOLs are not looking for that scientific information, but looking to the MSL to be that conduit to the company's resources to help their career or institutions like being on an advisory board or speaker on podium or an author of a publication. So as an MSL, you will have to know the KOL very well to find out what it is that you can bring value to them. Is it the scientific presentations or is it the career opportunities? And the key is to meet the KOLs where they're at. So now let's shift a little bit and talk about who MSLs are and what compensation looks like. I think this is a really nice set of slides from the MSL Society data that shows an infograph of the makeup of the MSL surveyed by the MSL Society in 2020. 2023 results are very similar. So they surveyed over 2000 MSL professionals and the results in the US showed there was an overwhelming number of women MSLs compared to men, more than half were women and about 41% were men. 31% of MSLs work in the oncology space while 15% of MSLs work in Majority of MSL surveyed were white who had a PhD degree at 39%, followed by 27% for PharmDs. So only 8% of MSLs had a medical degree. The top three places where MSLs work are in large, medium, and small pharma or biotech companies. And then the survey also breaks it down by years of experience.

So MSL-based salaries can vary significantly depending on the therapeutic area, geographic region, years of experience. educational background, and then size of the company, as well as a company's product and pipeline life cycle. So this is a comparison of the average base salary of MSLs from around the globe. The MSL Society hired an external research firm to collect and analyze the data from over 2000 participants from 60 countries around the world. So this is 2022 data. And keep in mind that the MSL role may be defined differently around the world. They may take on other responsibilities similar to commercial sales or marketing. So from those that participated in the 2021 salary survey, the majority of managers or directors of MSLs based in the US use the report as their primary salary benchmark data. I know we use this for our, not only just the MSL society data, but other data that we use as benchmark for our hire for this year. And so as you can see, there is a wide range of salaries and the MSL pay trends on the higher side in the US and then it increases annually, about 3%.

This is a snapshot of the 2022 average base salary of MSLs in the US according to years of experience. And as you can see on the left, the average starting salary is about 160,000. That's not including benefits, which makes it a very attractive compensation, even with less than one year of experience. The salary increases about 3% every year, as I mentioned. However, this is underestimating how much MSLs make because it doesn't include the long-term benefits which could be another 30 to $50,000. For example, some of those benefits are health insurance, 401k, stock options, a company car, and an expense account, which are added on top of your base salary. Now on the right is the average starting salary for an MSL manager or director. It usually starts above $200,000, but varies according to the years of experience. So if you see though that the difference here from managers compared to the MSL's salary is that it varies and it doesn't necessarily mean a trend up as one gains more experience. The years of experience of being a manager or director doesn't always translate to higher pay. And sometimes they do take a pay cut to move up into a company.

So when I was doing my research and deciding on whether the MSL job was right for me, I thought it was important to write down the pros and cons of being an MSL. And I... And I suggest you do the same transitioning, if you're transitioning from clinical to non-clinical. So please note that this is not a comprehensive list and it's very subjective. So for the pros, I showed on the previous slide that MSLs in the US are well compensated with a high base salary. Remote work is a plus, especially during the pandemic when I started. But working from home may not be suitable for some people. Having a flexible schedule includes making your own work schedule, arranging your own meetings and then. healthcare providers, meetings, as well as booking work travel. And there is at least 50% within your region or territory. And travel may be a deal breaker for some, but for me, it suits my lifestyle. And also there are great benefits that I explained. Some of the cons. So for industry is highly regulated and there is a lot of compliance and rules to follow. There is some loss of autonomy there. It's a transition from being a discoverer, for instance, like in academia, to being a knower. You know, you will not have a lot of patient interaction if you were a clinician and moving into becoming an MSL. And will certainly not be a scientist, but rather more of a communicator of science. And then you're going to be part of a larger team that is metrics driven and performance driven. So for example, you're measured on the number of healthcare provider. Outreach and interactions, insights and presentations, those are part of your metrics. Access to healthcare providers and scheduling face-to-face meetings. They were very difficult during the pandemic. But then we made it work through a hybrid kind of meetings where we had virtual and also in-person once they started opening up to vendors and to industry. So it's about really finding creative ways of gaining access.

The MSL role is very competitive. You will be competing against experienced MSLs for every single role you apply for. Breaking in is not easy, but it's not impossible. And most companies will require having MSL experience. It does take a lot of hard work and the right match to find that ideal job. And now I just, I'm going to pause here for a minute and just talk about one thing that I did not touch on. And that is that negative impression or that bias about working in industry. And you know, I came from academia came from practice as well. And I specifically titled my talk, going from academia to the dark side to illustrate this bias. But as someone who has worked on both sides, I believe education and having an open mind are key in tackling these biases and assumptions when considering transitioning to industry. And this section is going to be talking about how to become an MSL. I can be whole another presentation and discussion, but I'll just take a few minutes to talk about some steps and strategies that has worked for me and others. And the bottom line is preparation is key.

So remember that there are no general MSL roles. There are all disease state or therapeutic area focus. The first step is to really identify your therapeutic area or TA. For example, you could be conducting research in Alzheimer's and your disease state focuses neurology or neuroscience. or if you are conducting sickle cell anemia research, your TA will be hematology. If you want to exponentially increase your chances of breaking into your first MSL role, I'd say the three most important things are really to match, match. Match and find those target companies, target roles, and only apply to those once you have done your research and preparation. Next, research the role in the company you'd like to work for. I'd say do that now, follow the company on social media or even on Twitter, on LinkedIn, know everything you can about the company because when it does come time to interview, what I did is I told the company, I said, I've been following you for years, which is, it's a good sign that you actually are very knowledgeable about them. It also allows you more opportunities that help you get in front of people as you network and then get your foot in the door. There are also, for example, internships or fellowships offered because these can count as experience. translatable experience. And so too, you wanna look at and see if there's companies that have internships and apply for those opportunities. Attend industry-wide conferences and events and really build your network. Let them know you, your face and really introduce yourself and be proactive. A focus on quality professional contacts that are directly related to the MSL community. and identify key MSL leaders in medical affairs at companies that are of interest to you. So this is the most effective and easiest way to connect with a hiring manager and other key decision-makers. So the more relevant connections you make, the greater chance you will be successful in breaking in. So become an active member of MSL relevant groups, like the MSL Society, and there's others out there, cheeky scientists. This will allow you to really increase the network your circle of influence with those MSLs in industry, but also in the companies that you are interested in. It's really challenging to achieve on your own your circle of influence without the help of your network. So I highly encourage you to expand your reach and get out of your comfort zone and connect with others.

It's also really challenging to achieve becoming an MSL on your own without proper preparation and guidance. You will need to really stand apart from the competition. So there's also MSL trainings offered for aspiring MSLs, especially if you have no MSL experience. That's a great way to upscale, build your skills. If you lack industry experience or research experience, you know, we wanna keep pace with the changing demands of the profession. And if you need to enroll in online courses to learn about clinical trials or regulatory compliance, I'll provide a list of resources too with websites at the end of this talk.

John: Physicians are uniquely positioned to enter the biopharma industry. They obviously use the products produced by biopharma and are very comfortable discussing the research, development, and deployment of new pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests, and medical devices. In today's presentation, Maria provided a nice review of the pros and cons of the MSL job, the likely salary to expect, and sound advice to help you transition into the role. If you'd like to hear the rest of our presentation and the other 11 topics presented at the 2023 Non-Clinical Careers Summit, you can check that out at nonc forward slash two zero two three summit. That's nonc forward slash twenty three summit. That's all one word, no hyphens.

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The post Find Your Great First Nonclinical MSL Job appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In today's episode, John presents his roadmap for landing a captivating career as an MSL. 

This is Part 1 of a 2-part excerpt of his course How to Secure a Career as a Medical Science Liaison. John developed this course as one of the first courses for his Nonclinical Career Academy.

Part 2 will be presented next week. Together, these 2 presentations will provide you with a good understanding of what an MSL does and how to pursue your first job as an MSL.

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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 love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

The Captivating Career as an MSL

The Medical Science Liaison (MSL) in the pharmaceutical industry is a popular position for physicians who wish to leave clinical practice. This is true because it is possible to qualify for the job regardless of the extent of training. Whether you're residency-trained, board certified, or not, it does not require special certifications or degrees (beyond a medical degree).

And the job provides a moderate amount of flexibility working part of the time from home. However, it involves traveling to meet with clients up to 60% of the time.

SUBHEADING

John created How to Secure a Career as a Medical Science Liaison for the Nonclinical Career Academy. He provides excerpts from that course for this podcast episode and next week's.

By presenting the pros and cons, and an overview of the steps you can take to prepare for a job as an MSL, you will gain a much deeper understanding of the position to help you decide whether to pursue it.

He also goes into great detail about common tactics used to find a nonclinical career, including:

1. converting your CV to a resumé,
2. engaging mentors;
3. networking effectively,
4. creating a LinkedIn profile,
5. and identifying professional organizations that can hasten your progress.

The full six-part course can be found at: https://nonclinicalphysicians.com/mslcourse.

Dr. John Jurica's Advice

This job is open to physicians with almost any background, even those who have not completed residency training. And it requires no special certifications or degrees in most cases.

Summary

By listening to this episode and Episode 277, you will understand how to pursue a captivating career as an MSL and why it is so attractive.

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

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• How to Secure a Career as a Medical Science Liaison – The excerpt in these 2 episodes (276 & 277) provides an excellent plan for landing your first MSL job, but only represents about 15% of the material resented in the full course. And, by purchasing the course now, you will receive two 30-minute coaching sessions and admission to 3 monthly Nonclinical Mastermind meetings ($500 Value) to assist with your career transition.
• Medical Science Liaison Is Still a Fantastic Pharma Job – 261
• How to Network Effectively to Become an MSL – 089
• How to Secure Your First MSL Job – 066
• How to Optimize Your Career as an MSL with Dr. Linda Ho – 051
• NewScr!pt

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Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 276

How to Secure a Captivating Career as an MSL

John: A medical science liaison or an MSL is one of the most popular first nonclinical jobs for physicians, especially in the realm of the pharmaceutical industry. I've interviewed MSL from all kinds of medical backgrounds. And after completing my own research, I put together everything I learned into my course "How to Secure a Career as a Medical Science Liaison." It's one of the first courses I created for my nonclinical career academy. And I thought those of you interested in breaking into the pharmaceutical industry might be inspired to pursue this career after learning more about it.

I'm presenting a sample of the content in the course, starting with part one today. And then part two will be presented next week. Together, these two presentations will provide you with a good understanding of what an MSL does and how to pursue your first job as a medical science liaison.

Now, the material presented over these two weeks while dense with information only represents about 15% of the material in the course itself. But if you're struggling with whether to consider a pharma job, this will help you better understand the most popular entry level position in the pharma industry that I've encountered. So, here we go with part one on how to pursue a career as an MSL.

Hello everybody. This is John Jurica, and I'd like to welcome you to this course called "How to Secure a Career as a Medical Science Liaison." Let's go ahead and get started with lesson number one.

Okay, here we go. Let's start lesson number one - Let's prepare. Now, this particular career is open to both types of physicians that have board certification and residency training, and those that do not. That's one of the reasons I selected this as the initial type of course to present for my students because it's open to those of you who perhaps have an MD or the equivalent type of education and degree, but chose not to complete a residency and become board certified. Perhaps you're not licensed, but you do have an advanced degree, which is in a way equivalent to a PhD. The MD also has the fact that you probably had some contact with patients, obviously, so that gives you a leg up on some kinds of jobs. But you may be residency trained and board certified, and you may have some clinical experience. So, the MSL job is open to both.

But one of the things we need to address before we go into the specifics of a particular career, including this one, is this issue of self-limiting beliefs that may hold you back. And I hear about this all the time. I've spoken with many coaches who experience these kinds of comments or thoughts by their clients, and that is that we need to overcome some of these limiting beliefs so that we can successfully and aggressively move forward to that new career.

I just want to talk about a few of the more common self-limiting beliefs. There are many, but these are the ones that seem to be the most common. The first is the imposter syndrome. Now, technically the imposter syndrome is experienced by those who are already in a position, and it's a sense that "Even though I've reached this point, and I may on the outside appear to be successful, inside I feel as though I'm just barely hanging on. I don't really have the skills or the experience needed to do this job. And at the core, I'm an imposter. And at any minute now, I'm going to be found out."

Now, there's a concept I want to talk about here, and it's written about by Gay Hendricks in the book "The Big Leap", and you might want to pick this up and read through it, but let me explain the one concept here as it relates to feeling like an imposter. There's this concept of zone of excellence and zone of genius. Gay Hendricks talks about that. As we move through life, we move through different zones. And many of us, when we're very young working a job where we're incompetence. So, we're in our zone of incompetence, we're just struggling, we're learning as we go, but it's usually an entry level job and it's okay. After we learn a little bit, we can work and be competent. So that's our zone of competence. It's not really rewarding, but let's say we've learned how to balance a checkbook and do some basic accounting, and we can do it, but of course, there's probably a lot of other people that can better able to do that.

Now, once we complete our medical training, we're ready to go out and see patients, at least start a residency, if that's what we choose to do. And we are probably in our zone of excellence. But the zone of excellence means that while you're capable and probably very capable of doing that job, you're not really doing the work that you were called to do. And that's where the zone of genius comes in.

So, what we're working on today is getting past that zone of competence, past that zone of excellence and getting into the zone of genius. But you don't get to the zone of genius quickly. Once you've entered that new career, you're going to be enthusiastic and passionate. You're going to learn as much as you can, and then you're going to get to that point where you enjoy doing what you're doing and you're doing the work you were meant to do. And the whole imposter syndrome will, during this process, just fade away as a distant memory.

Now, the guilt is the second one. Feeling guilty about leaving your current role or leaving medicine behind. Well, a couple of things to consider in this situation. First of all, when you move on to one of these nonclinical jobs, you're still a doctor, you're still a physician. You'll always be a physician. And many of these jobs require you moving up, so to speak, in the hierarchy. In other words, for thousands of jobs, being an experienced physician is actually the baseline, it's the cost of entry to that job. There would be no other way to get that job other than to go through the process of completing your medical degree, and in some cases, working clinically.

You have nothing to feel guilty about. You're moving to some position that is extremely important, that meets the needs of a larger group of patients in many cases, or meets the needs of the healthcare system. And there's really no reason why you should feel guilty about going from being a clinical physician to a nonclinical position somewhere any more than let's say an attorney should feel guilty about going from being an attorney to a politician, or in other words, an attorney to a mayor, to a governor, to a senator, to a congressman. Those are positions that often build on the previous experience as an attorney, and certainly nobody should feel guilty about that.

Then there's this fear of failure. This is really the core of most people, including physicians, this core belief that holds us back. "What happens if I fail? I have responsibilities. What if I can't pay my bills? What if I can't get rid of my debt? What if I can't provide for my family?" These are serious issues that should definitely be mitigated and addressed and planned for.

But again, the reality is you've already demonstrated your ability to succeed better than 99% of your cohort, of people your age, students your age, people you went through school with. You've demonstrated that you can successfully finish college, successfully apply to medical school, successfully get accepted to medical school, successfully complete medical school, and in some cases even go beyond that. So, the likelihood of failing, particularly if you plan sufficiently, is very, very low.

And here's another one, it's too late to make a change. Now, if you're a physician who over a period of time has developed the signs of burnout, and you know what those are, but you're feeling really unhappy, you've decided you're not a failure, that you do have the necessary skills and experience at least to start working towards a different career. And even if it's late in life, so-called "late in life", age 45, 50, 55, even 60 years old, I've seen many examples of physicians who made drastic changes in their careers as late as 60 or 70.

In summary, in lesson number one, we've talked about "Prepare, do your homework." That's one of the reasons I am providing this course for you. Number two, don't skip the steps that we're going to go through here in the rest of these lessons. As long as you're methodical, you follow the steps, you don't say, "Well, I don't want to network. I don't want to write my resume the way John says to do it." No, don't skip the steps, do what we're going to talk about, and you will be successful.

Keep in mind the limiting beliefs and make certain that you've fully addressed them. And this is something to talk about with your spouse or significant other or other family members or even to a colleague. And you can have mentors and coaches that we'll talk about later where you can address some of these issues. And then it's an optional part, but read "The Big Leap" by Gay Hendricks. I think it'll help motivate you and see that if you haven't already found that job that you were truly meant to do, it's time to do that. So don't let that hold you back. And I think you'll be inspired by reading the book if you choose to do so.

I think it's time for us to move on to lesson number two. But these are the methods that we often use when seeking a new career. And it applies to almost any kind of nonclinical career search and probably could apply to almost any career search in general, even outside medicine or healthcare. But there's some exceptions to this, but in general, when you're making a shift from a clinical position to a nonclinical career and you really got to start from the very beginning in some sense, the needs have the universal truths or strategies that almost everybody's going to want to follow or utilize in some combination, and which should therefore be done effectively and intentionally.

Let me talk a minute here about mentors and coaches. For career change, I'm definitely saying you must identify a mentor and then at least occasionally touch base and have that mentor provide input into some of the decisions you are making so that you can stay on track and avoid going down some dead ends that aren't going to be useful.

Now let's talk about networking. Networking is a term that sometimes scares people. It sounds like something that sales people do more so than physicians, although I think at a high level, most of us understand that networking is a good thing. It's just a way to increase the number of people that you know in a certain field that can help one another. The thing is, for whatever reason I found, I think it's true that a large percentage of physicians are somewhat introverted. It's obviously not 100%, but many of us are nerdy. We like science. We have no problems most of the time sitting by ourselves, focusing on our studies, learning things, reading.

And so, networking for many of us, again, not all doesn't really come naturally. But we want to talk and think about networking as a standalone part of this career change because I've talked to some people in my podcast who have shifted, again, completely. I'm thinking right now of one MSL who made a shift. And she said that online resumes were worthless and that you're most likely to find a job by networking. Networking is very important. It should be on top of your list in terms of part of the strategies you're using during your career transition, especially early on. And we'll talk a little bit about how this can tie in with the other universal truth.

Now, professional organizations are the third universal. Now pretty much with every new career that you can think of, whether it's any career in pharma, whether it's medical writing, insurance, medicine, leadership, management, there are always physician professional organizations, not always a hundred percent physician. So, there's the physician organizations that might be applicable, but there's also organizations that are not dominated by physicians. They may have physician members, but they may not be dominated by physicians.

This is part of the strategy. Every time you're starting down that path, you're going to identify the most prominent organizations that may be able to help you in your career pursuit. The one listed here, the Medical Science Liaison Society has many professionals, because MSLs include PhDs and PharmDs as well as MDs. So obviously there's that.

Now LinkedIn. Why would I list a social media platform as one of the universal truths of career transition? And why would I not include something like Facebook or one of the other social media sites, Instagram, or even something like Doximity, which is a social media site for physicians. Well, let me explain why a couple things. First of all, LinkedIn isn't really like some of the other membership sites. It has pretty strict guidelines, and it's a professional organization or it's an organization design for professionals. And so, the whole thought process and just the atmosphere when you're on LinkedIn is different.

The last part of this, it's almost a given that in any job search you're going to be using some kind of a CV or resume. Let's just briefly talk about these two topics. A curriculum vitae is what most physicians who are in clinical medicine, most academicians and others of that nature use when looking for a new position. They want to put down anything and everything they've ever accomplished from the standpoint of education, certification, any publications, usually includes a list of presentations, things of that nature.

Well, in the business world, it's a little different. And so, for most nonclinical jobs, rather than using that kind of a CV, you're going to be using a resume. Now, granted, these two terms can be used interchangeably at times, but we're going to talk always about a resume.

The resume typically is focused more on your accomplishments than on your positions or your education. Just to give an example. There might be 20 MBAs or MD MBAs applying for a job. It's sort of the MD and the MD MBA are the baseline. What's important is their accomplishments. And so, usually on a resume, you're going to have a short paragraph at the top that talks about why you're seeking this position. And then you're going to have a list of accomplishments or experiences that you have enjoyed that demonstrate your abilities.

The other thing I wanted to mention here is that people ask, "Well, do I need to send a cover letter?" Yes, you need to send a cover letter. If it's superfluous, okay, fine. If it's something that they don't look at, then they just won't look at it. But the cover letter is less than a page. It's very short. Simply states the fact that you feel you have the requisite experience and education background and so forth to do the job. And a few sentences about why you think you can meet the needs of the organization. And of course, the more specific you can be, the better. Sometimes these things are even keyed off of information you might have gleaned by talking to the HR director or VP for your HR or whatever, depending on the organization you're going to work for. And each cover letter and each resume are customized. And then we're going to get into specifics for this particular course in the next section.

The summary for this lesson is that you must connect with a mentor or two. You should network. We've talked about the importance of professional organizations. Again, they provide their own level of networking, they provide education certification and even their own mentoring at times.

And then of course, LinkedIn overlaps and does all these different things as well. So, you must have a fully completed profile with the picture there of you that's recent. And then you need to sort of use that LinkedIn profile to kind of look for things you can put and maybe test things out to put on your resume. And be sure to use the cover letter, try to find someone directly to send the resume and cover letter to. Whether it's the CEO of the organization, the human resources director by name. Again, you can use the online submissions and they do get to the person generally, but it's very impersonal. So, if you can get a name that you can send that to directly with the cover letter, that is going to work out a whole lot better. And I think with that, that's all for lesson number two. I'm excited to move on to lesson number three.

By getting deep into what an MSL job is and how to apply for your first MSL job, I think you get a much better idea whether it's a good choice for you. Remember, a physician with almost any background can pursue this career. Even if you aren't licensed, even if you don't have residency training or only have partial residency training and you're not board certified, you can apply for this job and there are positions available for you. But if you are board certified, if you have extensive experience, then there's also jobs for you as well. They usually pay a little more. And this job is also available to nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and pharmacists with a Pharm.D degree.

We're only halfway through this presentation, so make sure you return for part two next week. Remember too that the material being presented in these episodes is only a fraction of the lectures and supporting materials found in my course "How to Secure a Career as a Medical Science Liaison."

Now, you can get the show notes with all the links that are discussed during this presentation at nonclinicalphysicians.com/captivating-career. So, you can get those links there. And if you want to go straight to my academy and learn more about the course, you can do that by going to nonclinicalphysicians.com/mslcourse. And of course, there's no obligation. You can check it out there.

Now, any of the new courses that I'm putting out at this time in late 2022, I'm including two 30-minute coaching sessions or consulting sessions, as well as the ability to join a Mastermind group monthly for at least three months after you register for this course. Those are extra bonuses that aren't even mentioned on the website. Again, go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/mslcourse. Get the full course. It's six lectures and a bunch of material that goes with it, very similar to what I'm presenting this week and next week. And it also includes those two coaching sessions and membership in the Mastermind for a minimum of three months.

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The post How to Secure a Captivating Career as an MSL – 276 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In today's podcast, John revisits the Medical Science Liaison, a fantastic pharma job, and a popular nonclinical career.

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Duties of an MSL

Typically, an MSL meets with these KOLs, updates them on scientific studies, reports on their conversations to the employer, and attends both remote and in-person meetings.  Depending n the size of the territory covered, travel requirements may be extensive.

This career is attractive because it does not require any special certification. It is open to physicians at all levels of training, with or without board certification. There are ample jobs and the number of positions is growing.

Once employed as an MSL, it is quite possible to make a lateral job change or advance into more senior positions.

Landing the first MSL job can be challenging. And travel away from home for multiple days can sometimes be required.

Keep in mind, that there is a specific manner to go about getting your first job, and it is prescribed and stated in one of the first topics for which I developed a comprehensive course for my nonclinical vocational academy.

A Fantastic Pharma Job

This is such a good option for physicians for several reasons.

• Physicians with all levels of education and experience (licensed, unlicensed, board certified or not) have successfully transitioned.
• No special certification or training is required.
• Successful MSLs can move into other pharma or medical device jobs and advancement opportunities are common.
• The salary is commensurate with a primary care physician's salary and increases as experience and expertise grow.

Summary

Medical Science Liaison is one of the “iconic” nonclinical careers that is ideally suited to physicians looking to work in the Pharmaceutical or Medical Device Industries. It is open to those with or without residency training. Travel demands can be extensive, but can be minimized by selecting positions at larger companies with smaller territories.

The Nonclinical Career Academy hosts a 6-lesson Medical Science Liaison Course. It provides much greater detail on the requirements and preparation for the job. And it will position you to apply for and land your first MSL job. It normally sells for $397. 

As an incentive to sign up NOW, if you use the Coupon Code HALFOFF you will be able to jump in and be on your way to applying for an MSL job soon, at a reduced cost. Learn more at Build a Rewarding, Lucrative Career as a Medical Science Liaison [Remember Coupon Code HALFOFF]. Or click the image below.

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• How to Get Your Fabulous First MSL Job – 126
• How to Network Effectively to Become an MSL – 089
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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 261

Medical Science Liaison Is Still a Fantastic Pharma Job

John: I wanted to revisit one of the most popular nonclinical jobs that physicians tend to pursue - Medical Science Liaison. It's been quite a while since I presented a podcast episode on this topic or had a guest discussing this topic. So, I want to update you on this career option. Let's not waste any time.

Let's start with the definition. An MSL or medical science liaison serves as an educational and feedback link between a pharmaceutical biotechnology or medical device company and healthcare professionals. The reason I put the words "educational" AND "feedback" link in there is because I really want you to distinguish this from a sales position. When we talk about being a liaison or a mediator between let's say the pharma company and a subscriber. Let's just say a prescriber rather. A subscriber is not enough, just subscribing to it, their magazine won't cut it. But being a prescriber, that's important. But if you're selling in your marketing, then you're a salesperson. And MSL does not do any sales. In fact, an MSL is really completely precluded from doing sales and is educational. That's what the role is.

And you, as an MSL, you need to learn this information, get this knowledge and transfer it to the people that you're contacting and reaching out to, which I'll go into more detail in a minute. In fact, some companies will use MSLs to train the sales people on the technical part and the FDA regulated part of promoting the drug or the medical device. But there are companies where they don't even allow an MSL to have conversations with sales because they really want that completely separated.

Given that sort of definition, let's get a little bit into the details of this. So, what does an MSL do? What is an MSL? An MSL in their job has to do five major components of that job. One is they have to learn. They have to learn about the products, or product in some cases, just a single product, that they're going to know inside and out and discuss with the recipients of their education, which again, I'll describe in a minute who those people are.

Number two, they need to connect. So, they need to find these people. They need to probably in most cases develop relationships with let's just say physicians or other prescribers, who they've not known before. That's a big part of it. Connecting, engaging with these people so you can interact with them and help educate them.

And so, that's where the third part comes in, which is teaching and advising them. Once you're connected and you're face to face, you're on a Zoom call or a phone call, or however you're interacting, maybe at a large meeting. Generally, it's going to be in their office or at their workplace. And you have to have the skills and the knowledge necessary to communicate with them in an efficient way and an effective way and get the point across that you're trying to get across. That helps them, helps their patients and at the same time benefits your company, who's producing these products.

And then the other big one though, is listening, because you learn by speaking with these physicians and other prescribers or pharmacists or nurses, and what have you. And you get feedback, you take that in, you digest it, you analyze it and you use it to take back to your company so that they have that kind of feedback and can make adjustments to what they're putting together as educational components or how they're educating or even communicating about the drug in written materials or on computer-based materials, things like that.

And then the last part is to also just inform your company, your supervisor, what you've been doing, how have you been spending your time? What were the outcomes of those things? Do you have any information you can share about the utilization, the adoption of the drugs that you're talking about and educating your contacts about?

Those are kind of the big components of actually what you're doing. Again, you have to learn, you got to connect, you got to educate and teach. You've got to listen and you've got to take that back.

Now how does that happen in a day-to-day basis? What exactly are you doing? Again, without getting into too much detail, a lot of what you're doing is you're meeting face to face. You have time carved out. You've got an appointment with someone who needs this information, who wants this information. They can be going by various types of names, but usually they're called a KOL, which is a key opinion leader. They're a prescriber who's usually a thought leader.

So that's why they're called KOLs, key opinion leaders, because not only are they using these drugs, but they're also perhaps speaking about these drugs or they're telling their contacts or other physicians about these drugs. Or you can imagine someone using a cardiac drug, well, the family doctor might use it. The internist might use it, but then a cardiologist might use it and an anesthesiologist might use it.

And so, your key opinion leader may be a cardiologist who has a very specialized area where this drug works, let's say for physicians that are treating arrhythmias. But the family doctor may also use it, but they may not be a key opinion leader because they're not sharing it with other people. So, you have these influencers, these key opinion leaders, or sometimes just a prescriber for let's say the medication that you're talking about and educating about, especially when they're new, that's when the most activity is occurring.

If you're an MSL, you're going to get the word out about this new drug that treats a new category of patients or treats a new condition or treats it in a better way with fewer side effects, that kind of thing. So, you're meeting with these people, you're sharing the research, you're answering questions. You might be doing just a verbal presentation. You might be handing things out. You might be showing a computer presentation that was put together by either the drug company itself or maybe one of its communication companies.

Then you also have to write reports and follow up to those interactions and visits that you're doing or online calls. And then the other thing you do a lot of, at least probably once a week is attend meetings and activities back at the home office, wherever you're based out of or the company that you're working for. That's kind of what the job entails. If you read between the lines, you kind of got the idea that it entails some travel, which I'm going to talk about in a minute.

What are the basic skill sets? Well, you can base on what I've already described. It's pretty much what you would think. So, the basic core as you have to have a scientific background. An MSL position is one unlike others that are not strictly for physicians. In fact, physicians are probably a smaller percentage of MSLs at most companies. I might say anywhere from 10% to 20%, if that, depending on the size of the company and how much resources they have, how big the drug is, and how sophisticated its use is because in that case, you really want to get people with the most experience and most background. Rather than having, let's say a master's level person, some sort of scientist who's got a master's, it could be an MSL.

But if you have a more complex drug and need that real background, then you're going to need a Pharm.D, a PhD or an MD or equivalent. That could be MD, DO even MBBS and so forth. And it's really that degree in that understanding of pharmacology and pharmacy and medication use and all those things that go into that that's important. It's not necessarily the clinical use, although that can be important. And I'll explain that in a minute. But the basic minimum is that you have a scientific background.

Then what are the other skills you need? You need to be engaging. You need to have good verbal skills. You might say you need to have charisma, maybe have a little background in sales, maybe from before you went into medical school. Although again, this is not a sales type position, but you need to be able to get in, communicate quickly, build rapport and confidence by the people that you're talking to. That you're not just memorizing and spewing things out, but you have a real understanding and you know how to communicate it well.

And that's true, whether you're working in front of a group or individually, or even in your writing. So, you need good presentation skills, need good writing skills, because you're going to probably be writing materials that you might be giving to your KOLs and influencers and in addition to what's produced by the company, but then you also have to report back to the company.

The other thing that you need, the way I put it is you need to be organized and disciplined because there's a lot of flexibility in this job. Others have said that this is something that's called self-management. Typically, you are going to have control over the hours you spend doing this, when you do it, where you do it, how you travel, when you travel, when you set time aside to do your paperwork, do your reports, do your expenses, expense reports. You have to keep track of this because you're not normally sitting in an office 09:00 to 05:00 where you have either direct help or direct supervision. And also, that means you also have to be sure that you're getting back to your employer with the appropriate reports done in a timely fashion or you're going to end up falling behind.

And then you have to have a collaborative mindset. You are working on a team, even though for most of the let's say weekly schedule you're working independently and interacting with people outside the company, you are on a team, you're in the medical affairs department, usually of a pharma or medical device company or you're working for a CRO. But you are part of a team. You might be teaching about one or two or three drugs. Maybe there's a lot of drugs in this therapeutic class. And so, you have others addressing the other drugs in the class. You get together, you share information, then you share feedback. Again, you need to have that collaborative mindset because you are working on a team.

And then the last skillset you could have, that you might not have, that I mentioned earlier, but it can be a bonus. I'll explain how and why. You could already have before you joined as an MSL for your first job, maybe you were in practice and you actually have a panel of key opinion leaders or influencers that you already interact with. Maybe the people you refer for your patients to.

Let's say you're an internist and you have got a lot of patients with heart failure, but you also refer patients to the cardiologists for the end stage heart failure who have a little more knowledge of the drugs that you're using. And so, now you're sort of an expert, could be a cardiologist or could be an internist either way, but now you have an expertise. And when you go to get your first job as an MSL, you might go to a company that has those drugs, which you've been using and in which you're a bit of an expert in, and in which you have a network of other people that you know that use those medications. And so, when you're hired as an MSL for that company, you're actually bringing them your panel of KOLs.

And a couple of good things are going to happen. You're going to make more money in that situation. Most likely they're going to pay you more. If you can find that job, you have to line up with the company that's got the right drugs in the area where you live. Otherwise, you're going to lose that panel. So, you get paid better. And also, your territory tends to be a little smaller, because you're not typically going to have relationships with people that are in another state unless you are the KOL. If you're the physician that's been doing presentations and sort of sharing your knowledge of this drug with someone who's a colleague, well, when you become the MSL, now you can share it with them as one of your key opinion leaders or influencers. So, that can be very useful. That's not applicable to those who never worked clinically. But I do bring up that group as well because this job is open to people that have the MD and don't have any clinical background per se, or never cared for patients beyond in medical school.

Okay. I've tried to give you a lot of information about why an MSL job is such a good one and it's very popular. Again, no special training is required. I will say that there is such a thing as board certification as an MSL, but you have to have at least a year of experience doing this job. I suspect many have had more than one year of experience, but you can't do that before you get your first job or have never worked as an MSL. So, it is still open to a large group of people in multiple disciplines, multiple specialties, and even those that aren't physicians, but we're focusing of course, on the physician component.

Salary is competitive. I've seen entry level $140,000 plus or minus, depending on the state location, drugs that are being used. Now, that's for all MSLs. The physician MSL tends to make $10,000 or $20,000 per year to start more than that. And the average MSL who's been working for a while as close can easily get over $200,000. Again, if you're a physician and you've been doing this for a while, you can easily replace your clinical income.

There seemed to be an apple number of jobs. It's competitive, but it's expected to add another 10,000 of these jobs over the next 10 years or so. There's the flexibility. It's an entry into pharma in general. So, you could move later into other jobs as an MSL. You could be a regional, you could be a MSL manager. You could go and become a medical director in medical affairs potentially, or pharmacovigilance, or other parts of a pharma company or medical device company. And so, there is room for advancement for sure. And it also has all the usual benefits of not being in clinical medicine. No liability, not getting phone calls. You're not on call on the weekends. You get a 401(k) and sick dates, vacation. So, it's less stressful than clinical practice for sure.

What are the challenges with becoming an MSL? Well, there's no school you can go to that tells you what to do to be an MSL. Everyone's in there competing for those jobs. So, it can be competitive. The first job is always the most difficult. Once you get past that, then it's a lot smoother sailing. And then the other big one that people talk about is the travel that's required. Now, if you're someone who doesn't have any clinical experience and you're really competing for that first MSL job, you're probably going to be more likely to work for a smaller company, which tends to have bigger territories. Instead of a territory being one county or one major city, it might be three states. And sometimes it's not even states that are contiguous. And so, that could be a lot of travel.

If you're more experienced as a physician and maybe you've got your own panel, well, now you're going to have a narrower area. If you work for bigger companies in the large metropolitan areas, you can get and really try and focus on the different territories and be careful. Then you can sometimes be in a territory where you're really driving to all your meetings that aren't virtual meetings and you might have a territory where you're home every night. Otherwise, you might be flying and be gone two or three days at a time as you're hitting multiple influencers in an area that's not adjacent to where you're residing. But keep that in mind when you're applying for these jobs. Try to have multiple options, then you can try and leverage the ones that are closer to you and that are again bigger companies, smaller territories and more dense territories so you can see people with less distant travel.

That's basically what I wanted to tell you about MSLs today. It's really just an introduction. It's just a reminder that this is a great job. I've been following this since I started my podcast more than five years ago. I've interviewed multiple MSLs and addition of talk to many more that I didn't interview. And so, I really think it's a career that leverages your medical background and in your experience. So that's good. It builds on your clinical background if you have that. It pays well, it does not require additional certification. It offers opportunities for advancement, and I don't see how you can beat it if nothing else is obvious.

Now, if you're working in a hospital already, we often talk about going into hospital management. But if you've been out there working on your own in a clinic or something, and you don't have any obvious nonclinical jobs to step into and that's what you're looking to do, well, MSL and pharma, which is massive number of jobs for physicians in general is a great option.

But just remember that the first job is the most difficult to get. And actually, that's why this is one of the first areas that I created a complete course for my Nonclinical Career Academy. It's outlined in there that there's a certain way to go about getting that first job. And so, in my course, the six lectures go into much more detail about how to land your first MSL job, where to find the resources to learn what you need to learn so you can interview well, you can create your resume well, and set yourself up for success.

I've had that course on there for a couple of years now. The current price is $397, but as an incentive to sign up now, if you use the coupon code "HALFOFF", [H-A-L-F-O-F-F] as a way to try to get you to think about and pursue this job. Now, again, put the coupon code "HALFOFF" and you're going to purchase the course and you'll have this 50% discount.

And if you start in the next week or so, you'll be able to actually apply for your first job within a few months or so. You've just got to focus and learn everything you can and then put your resumé and prepare for your interviews and start looking for jobs. And you can find that course at nonclinicalphysicians.com/mslcourse. That's my Nonclinical Career Academy, medical science liaison course at nonclinicalphysicians.com/mslcourseThat's it today Nonclinical Nation. I want to give that update on one of the most popular nonclinical full-time, well-paying jobs for physicians. And with that, we'll end today's presentation.

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