Industry Doc

Becoming an Investigator – Part 3

industrydoc — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:31:03 +0000

Becoming an Investigator for a Drug Company – Part 3

For Part 1 – click here.

For Part 2 – click here.

Now comes the best part – how to determine how much you should get paid. You DO realize the sponsors pay you money to be an investigator in a clinical trial, don’t you?

All patients who are eligible to to enter a clinical trial, once they sign a consent, now incur charges that you are reimbursed for. FAR in excess of your usual fees, believe it or not. You can charge for physical exams, vital signs, blood draws, treatments and procedures. At retail prices. For cash payments. Sweet, huh?

And all drugs are paid for, both the investigational drugs as well as the comparitor drugs (those you are using as a control.) In addition, if you are a surgeon or a proceduralist, and the trial calls for you to perform procedures, you get almost full retail fees for these as well. Finally, you can charge for your nursing services or those of your coordinator. And if you work for a large clinic or an institution, they frequently will allow an administration fee of up to 20% or more.

So for every patient you see that qualifies for the trial, you get a fee for that patient. But it is not fee for service, you have to spec out the fees in advance using a trial budget.

Becoming an Investigator – Part 2

industrydoc — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:53:28 +0000

Becoming an Investigator for a Drug Company – Part 2

For Part 1 – click here

What are the duties of a Clinical Investigator?

It really is not that hard to be an investigator. If you have even the slightest ability toward following a rigid procedure properly, can afford your staff’s time to perform the duties required adequately, and can complete documentation as required, you can be an investigator. Let’s break down the issues to bite size pieces.

A Site

What is a site? A site is simply the office / clinic / place where you see and treat the patients (technically usually called subjects.) Subjects go to sites to get enrolled into protocols run by an investigator.

The Protocol

A protocol is a document that in great detail spells out the background of the disease being studied, the investigational drugs being studied, and the treatments to be performed at each visit. There is one requirement about protocols – they must be followed to the letter. There is no place for second-guessing, improvising, or being a maverick. Protocols are designed very carefully with statistics and the data to be analyzed must be in the exact format as required by the protocol or else it is useless. But if you can follow a template or algorithm there should be no problems.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

These are the requirements for the patients/subjects to be entered in the trial. Inclusion Criteria are the characteristics or diseases that all patients MUST possess in order to be eligible to enter the trial. Exclusion Criteria are all the characteristics that the patients must NOT have in order to be eligible to enter the trial. Therefore if a patient meets all the inclusion and none of the exclusion criteria they are now eligible to enter the trial as a subject.

Screen Failure

Any patient that initially seems like they will qualify for the trial, but after evaluation (by physical exam, laboratory findings or further history) fails one or more of the inclusion or exclusion criteria, is considered a screen failure. This means that this particular patient is no longer eligible to enter the trial. The number of patients screened vs. actually entered (see below) is called the screen-failure rate. If your screen failure rate is too high, you may not be using adequate judgement in which patients to consider entering the trial, or they may think you are screwing your sponsor to collect the screen-failure fee, which you get for each screen fail (usually a small fraction of the total patient fee.)

Entered or Randomized Patient

Once a patient passes all the requirements to enter a trial, they now must usually go into one or more groups, usually an active treatment or a placebo treatment. There may also be trials where ALL patients will get active treatment but one group may get an additional treatment. In order to keep the trial blinded, that is so that the patient does not know and can’t figure out which treatment they are on, or double-blinded, where neither the patient nor the investigator know which treatment is assigned, the patient must be randomized, a simple method where they are randomly assigned to one group or the other by the sponsor. In most trials after the patient has gone through this process, they are considered randomized or simply entered. These are the patients that can have their data evaluated after the trial is over.

Competitive Enrolment

As lots of investigators use clinical trials to earn money, how many patients they can potentially enroll is important for them to know before they decide to participate in a trial. Some trials are designed to only allow a fixed number of patients per site, especially if racial or other ethnic factors are being evaluated and the sponsor does not want too many of a particular group in the study, which might skew the results. Other trials are designed as competitive enrolment, which means that everyone may enroll as mnay as they can until the target enrolment is reached. If a site gets shut out before they can enrol – tough. So large sites with many potential patients may have the ability to enrol a significant number of patients and therefore earn significant amounts of money.

Clinical Monitors

These are either freelance consultants or sponsor employees whose job it is to check up on you and make sure you and your staff are doing all the right things and keeping on track. They may train you and your staff, instruct you in Remote Data Capture - basically internet-based data entry into the central data base, and review your Source Documents - the original x-ray reports, lab slips and other tests that prove you actually did what you entered into the database. They also check up on possible errrors by sending Queries - questions asking for validation of a result or an explanation for a variance. Clinical monitors are your friends and help you when you run into problems.

Study Coordinator

Perhaps the most critical aspect of becoming a clinical investigator is the job function of a Study Coordinator. This is generally an individual in your site (office) who is responsible for dealing with the patients once they are enrolled. They will generally explain all the informed consents, perform all the screening procedures, document results, enter results in remote data capture programs and answer queries from the site. In other words, the workhorse for the entire trial. These people frequently have separate job descriptions and clinical study work is all they do. Other investigators get a motivated (or overworked) nurse in their office to take on these responsibilities. As long as you are not going nuts with the enrolling, frequently minimal to moderate clinical study duties can be handled as well as the back-office nursing duties, and many of the nurses see this as a way to increase their value and skillset.

You MUST have somebody in this position - almost all sponsors demand this. So consider hiring additional staff or see if your nurse will take on the duties, especially if a pay bump comes with it.

Storage

Generally a minor thing but you should designate an area dedicated to study drug and study record storage. Usually this is not a major ordeal, but check that the study drug does not need to be refrigerated if you don’t own a refrigerator. Likewise all patient records related to the study should be in a central place, for ease of review by the clinical monitor.

For more on budgeting and payments, click here for Part 3.

Headhunters – the real scoop

industrydoc — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:20:39 +0000

Headhunters serve a function. To any business or industry player, headhunters are the best way they have to fill positions, usually for higher level positions. You don’t use headhunters to fill secretarial or lower administrative slots – the standard newspapers, online applications and word of mouth works well for most lower level entry positions.

The garden variety headhunter makes a LOT of money from finding the right candidate for the position they are seeking to fill. They basically look to poach someone with documented credentials or experience from another company; they don’t seek to place a green doc with minimal experience in such a position. In other words, they are looking for ME. If they call me with an offer, and I accept it, they will receive on the order of up to $50,000 for their efforts. Therefore, I get on average 5 to 7 calls per week from these guys – if I were to bite, they just earned a lot of money for little work. So my company better hope that I stay happy in my position or else I might … (just kidding!)

Don’t get me wrong, if the headhunter IS retained to fill a slot with an entry level doc, perhaps with the need for YOUR specialty, AND he happens to know of your availability, there may be a match made in heaven. But the odds of this are remote, because there are literally thousands of headhunters out there. Lots work for big firms, but many more are with small shops or are independents. What do you think the odds are that the one guy with a contract to fill for a position needing a green doc will connect with you?

Legitimate (i.e. ethical) Headhunters

So you might think the best course of action is to contact as many headhunters as you can and notify them of your availability. They will assuredly be overjoyed to hear from you and work diligently to assist you in your job search. WRONG.

Let me repeat – legitimate headhunters seek to fill a position at a company that they have been contracted by to fill. They seek indiviuals with specific skills and only those skills. They could care less whether that person is you or someone else as long as the skillsets jibe with the employer’s needs. If they don’t have any opening for a position that you would qualify for, they don’t want to deal with you. In other words:

They will not acknowlege your written correspondence or emails.
They will not return your telephone calls.
You will never hear from them again unless they think they need your skills, or think you may know somebody with the required skills.

You may find this unbelievable, but this is the way life works in headhunter-land. So as practical advice, do not:

Spend a fortune on employment “directories” or lists of headhunters.
Contact everybody you can find with a blanket request.
Expect anyone to respond unless you happen to meet their needs.
Expect anyone to assist you in locating a position elsewhere.

Unethical Headhunters (also known as whores)

These are the slimes that give all the others indigestion. These are the headhunters who WILL respond to your queries and immediately ask for a CV withouit asking anything else about you. They will promise you the moon if only you send them your information. THEN, your CV will be blasted to every single company with an opening for ANYTHING, whether you are qualified or not, with the hopes that they may hit the lottery and place you somewhere. If you are lucky, your CV gets filed in the round bin, more likely you will get on the HR blacklist and be dead for any future opportunities. These are the guys that contact me by email, misspell my name, and promise me a fee if I get others to send them CV’s. (Guess which spam folder they get filed in?)

Why is this a bad thing? Why not blast all the companies and see what shakes out? Because it PISSES THE COMPANIES OFF! An ethical headhunter only sends candidates that have the qualities the business is looking for – if he sends them numerous bozos he will be wasting everyone’s valuable time and almost certainly he will lose the contract and be out future fees. HR knows this and therefore at best unsolicited CV’s are a considered a nuisance.

What should you do then if contacted by a headhunter?

The following should be reviewed by your attorney as I am not giving legal advice. Caveat emptor.

If you are contacted by a headhunter, do NOT immediately send out a CV, even though they ask for one. This may be one of the most important moves in your life, so consider it on the same level as a marriage posposal. FIRST, get specific information from the person – how many years in business, who are some of their clients (companies) and what positions have they placed? Have they ever placed anyone similar in skillsets to you? Could they provide a reference(s)? Do they have a specific position in mind for you? If they answer all of these questions frankly and forthrightedly, you may be in luck. If they refuse stating confidentiality or some other nonsense, simply hang up and save yourself the grief; you’ve go a whore on the other end.

If you ARE considering sending a CV, FIRST review with your attorney and have them draft and send a document like this:

I, John Doe, agree to deliver my CV to Jane Smith, dba Headhunters Inc, for review in regards to a professional placement with Company ABC in the position of ZZZ. I expressly retain all rights to this document and in case of termination of this business relationship Jane Smith will return said CV to me and destroy any and all written or electronic copies. Under no circumstances is this document to be forwarded to any other individual or company in any format, written or electronic, without my express written advance consent.

In case of substantial breach of this agreement, Jane Smith agrees to pay damages in the sum of $5000.00 (or the limits of your Small Claims Court in your jurisdiction).

Time is of the essence in this contract.

Signed, John Doe Jane Smith

Again, if they balk or refuse, run don’t walk. No professional will have a problem with this request.

For any and all things related to headhunters, visit the website Ask The Headhunter by Nick Corcodolis. He is a consumate professional with loads of tips for seeking a new position, has a free email letter and a blog. Highly recommended – after years in the same company I still read his insights and follow his recommendations – you never know.

Headhunters – a primer

industrydoc — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:43:31 +0000

Whenever anyone starts thinking about finding a new job or career, they usually wonder about getting help from an employment agency or a job search firm - in other words a headhunter. Headhunters are professionals that place individuals with companies seeking candidates with specific capabilities or skills. Before I give you my opinions, the best descriptions of the types of headhunters and their differences comes from the blog of Ask The Headhunter, written by Nick Corcodilos. He also writes the Ask The Headhunter website. I highly recommend you read his book by the same name, as well as everything he writes on his website.

From his blog,

Could you please clear up the different recruiter types? What exactly is the difference between Contingency, Corporate, Retained, Staffing/Temp, etc.? What advantages/disadvantages does each pose? And what level of hiring (entry, mid, exec, etc.) does each do?

Corporate Recruiters are the folks who work in a company’s HR department. They recruit only for their own company and are paid a salary (and sometimes a bonus).

Staffing/Temp Firms are employers themselves. They recruit and hire people, then they assign these folks to client companies. The workers go to work at the client company every day. The client pays the staffing/temp firm a fee from which the firm pays the worker a salary and benefits. If you want to be employed directly by the company where you show up for work, then staffing/temp firms are not for you. Neither corporate recruiters nor staffing firms are headhunters. (Nor are career coaches or career marketers.)

Real headhunters are independent. They are not the employees of any particular employer. They do not hire you. They will not find you a job. Their business is filling positions for their client companies. That’s why headhunters usually will not return calls from job hunters. It’s not their business.

Lots of folks are confused by this. If the headhunter needs to place people to make money, why wouldn’t they return your call? They need you, right? Well, yes and no. Headhunters need good candidates to place, but they are not usually interested in unsolicited calls from job hunters. Good headhunters target specific people they want to recruit, and they go after them. They will come to you if you are on their target list. That’s what they’re paid for: To go find the right candidates, not to filter candidates who come to them. (Contrast this to most corporate recruiters, who wait for applicants to respond to job ads.)

Contingency Headhunters are the most common. They operate like hired guns; the client pays for results. They are paid only when they actually fill a position. They almost always juggle several clients and assignments, and they usually compete with other headhunters who are trying to fill the same jobs. Only one will get paid when the job is filled. Contingency fees usually range from 15%-30% of the new hire’s salary. In my opinion, some of the best headhunters work mainly on contingency. It keeps them sharp.

Retained Headhunters are paid a fee whether they fill a position or not. They are consultants to a client company. The goal, of course, is to fill the job. But they will also interview and consider candidates that their client company introduces to them – even internal candidates. It doesn’t matter where the candidate comes from. The retained headhunter gets paid regardless. Their recruitment process is usually more formal and structured than that of contingency headhunters, and it includes a level of consulting that few contingency headhunters provide. That’s part of what the client is paying for.

Retained assignments are relatively rare, and are usually done at the executive level. (Bear in mind that only about 3% of all jobs are filled by any kind of headhunter.) Retained fees usually are around one-third of compensation.

When dealing with headhunters, what matters most is who the headhunter is. Forget about the firm and what type of headhunter they are. What matters most is how good they are at their work and how motivated they are to work with you. That’s why you should judge a headhunter before you agree to let them present you to their client.

Remember that a real headhunter’s job is not to place you. It’s to fill the position. But if they place you, they will try to make sure you are happy with the deal, because you are their next potential source of new candidates.

Searching on Industry Websites

industrydoc — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:43:09 +0000

Finding a Position on Industry Websites

Believe it or not, alm0st all open industry positions are publicly posted on their websites. The first reason for this is compliance with the various HR regulations that mandate making available all positions to existing employees (it promotes internal promotions and may have EEOC connotations; whatever the reason they all have to do it.) Secondly, if you have reviewed the headhunter articles on this site you will know that there is a substantial fee paid to these guys – if the company can get a candidate that foots the bill through a website posting they are that much ahead.

All company websites usually have a tab on their site labelled “Careers.” Others may have areas named “Join the Team” or some other such puff. Whatever it is called, here is where all the posted positions will be. Unfortunately, it usually will be ALL the positions in the company, including all administrative, manufacturing and sales positions, in EVERY division in the company worldwide. But luckily, there usually is some sort of search capability, which can be set to narrow down geographically & by position in a Boolean fashion.

Search for keywords such as Physician, Research Physician, Associate Director, Director etc. If you are lucky, there will be only a few positions. Print out the job descriptions and tailor your CV and cover letter to the position you want. They may have an online resume posting system – see the Online Resumes section on this site for help.

How to Find Industry Websites

Just Type in the Company’s URL

If you have some idea of the name of the company you might wish to seek a position with, if they are a major company, it may be as simple as typing the url of the name, such as www.pfizer.com. Then simply navigate through the website until you find the Positions page.

The Physician’s Desk Reference a.k.a. the PDR

The PDR lists all the companies that manufacture drugs, vaccines, biologicals and generics. Under each company’s listing is the contact information for that company. And at the end of the listing you can find the company website. Go now and attack.

Google

It may seem obvious but you would be amazed at the number of people who forget that the venerable search engine may be your best ally in searching for positions. It may lead you to companies, posting websites or any number of other resources.

Search on the company names for starters and proceed from there.

Computer Skills

industrydoc — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:31:41 +0000

How are your computer skills? Seriously. You will be expected to know your way around a computer if you get an industry job. This means not having to call your assistant or IT every time you can’t perform a certain task.

So, what software can you use? In industry, that means Windows, probably XP Pro, and some flavor of Microsoft Office. You will be expected to know some programs well right out of the box, some adequately, and others are nice to know. For you Macaholics, welcome to industry, where almost always Windows is the rule, except perhaps in a high end graphics-oriented vendor, where they will probably have little use for a doc anyway.

If you have few or no computer skills, now is not the time to be a Luddite or a curmudgeon. You will be at a severe disadvantage if you do not acquire these skills and fast. Your duties on the job will not leave you time or opportunity to learn these later. There are usually multiple opportunities at your local community college, library or community center to attend some classes in basic computer skills – sign up for as many as you can handle.

Also, if you ARE skilled in these programs, be sure to display these skills prominently in your resume.

The programs you will especially need to know are:

Microsoft Outlook

This program will be the heartbeat of your industry life, and email its blood. If there is any program that you are expected to know, it will be this program. Thankfully, even if you have never used this specific program before, the basics of email are the same – opening, replying, forwarding and adding attachments. if you have not used email before, LEARN. You probably already have Outlook installed if you own a computer with Windows installed. Set up your account (you will need to get the information how from your internet service provider, or if you already have an account at Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or others, they will have information on how to use Outlook to get your email in Outlook instead of directly through the Web.) Get a few pen pals, subscribe to a few lists, and practice.

Microsoft PowerPoint

Believe it or not, Microsoft PowerPoint is the second most important program you will need to learn. There will be a significant amount of meetings involving presentations, many if not all will involve being projected using a computer as the source. Hence, PowerPoint. Lots of bulleted lists, graphs, charts and cut & paste. Luckily, this program is also not too hard to learn, and you may get some slack regarding training. But you will be far ahead of the curve if you get a couple of books or night courses and learn the basics. There are also courses on CD-ROM for a modest fee that you can use to learn on your own time.

Microsoft Word

Also a staple. Lots of reports, memos, possibly typing protocols and regulatory submissions are the norm. No big deal, the basics are rather simple, but again, little training is available. If you don’t type well, no worries, hunt and peck is perfectly acceptable. And thank heaven for the backspace key. But if you are absolutely ignorant of the way around a word processor, then back to the library or community center and get the skills.

Microsoft Excel

This is the last of the staples. Excel is a spreadsheet program, used mainly in budgeting, forecasting and charting. In its most basic, it allows for the tallying of columns of numbers. You will not be expected to know the esoteric guts of this program – even the experts who use it all day every day don’t know all the features. You will need to know how to use a template, enter figures and tally totals. Classes or training are frequently available if you ask – I suggest you get training as soon as feasible as it will assist you in you job in the long run. For now – learn the basics.

There are essentially two other Microsoft programs that you may encounter a need to use (aside from Internet Explorer, the Web browser, which if you are reading this site, you are already using well.) They fall under the nice-to-know category – not essential, they will train you if they find it essential to your duties, but if you already know them, it may be a plum in your cap.

Microsoft Access

This is the Microsoft database program. It is a powerful relational database program, good for creating databases, or reports from databases. It takes much intensive training and daily use to get good with this program – many persons who use it may only use a specific database created by others and/or IT, and then use the features of Access to manipulate the data and produce reports. Access may be used as a “front end” to access drug safety data or other corporate databases in the company. Don’t worry if you’ve never touched this program – if your job requires it they will teach you.

Microsoft Project

Not a part of a typical Microsoft Office setup, Microsoft Project (for some reason they always use both words for this program, rather than just Word, Excel, Outlook or PowerPoint for the others) is a Project Management program. This program facilitates formal project management, which involves large scale management of projects, such as clinical trials or drug launches. Project management is a career in itself, and many large corporations will have persons dedicated to project management that will part of if not the de facto leader of many teams. But frequently, you will be expected to handle your own projects, including timelines, resources, and cross-functional management. If you are good with conceptual management, are a bit of a geek that is good with esoteric software, you may take to this program. Again, if your company finds it essential to your duties, they will provide you with training.

There are probably other programs you will need to learn, ranging from time management to payroll to staff evaluations to accounts payable. But these are either big ticket programs that only the big boys can afford, custom ones developed in house, or so esoteric that no one else knows them. At any rate you will enjoy countless hours in training learning these programs which as a manager you will need for your everyday duties, if your company deems that you need to know them. Sometimes you can delegate these duties to a subordinate, other times ONLY you can know them, and you must know them well. But your company will train you so don’t worry. Concentrate on the basic programs listed above and you will be way ahead of the competition.

Online Job Forums and Bulletin Boards

industrydoc — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:08:18 +0000

This post is not so much an instruction in how to use these forums but how NOT to use the online job forums. There is an incredible amount of hype and hyperbole associated with these animals, and the one underlying truth is that they rarely help anyone find a job (notwithstanding the hilarious Super Bowl commericials to the contrary.)

I mean, think about it. There a literally MILLIONS of people signing in to these things for FREE. All posting resumes. And the companies seeking applicants first 1) have to pay lots of money to use them and 2) are expected to sort through THOUSANDS of resumes all of the same identical format when they use a search term like “medical director.” And you wonder why they run screaming in the night away from such sites.

Additionally, these web sites, especially those like Monster.com have essentially changed their business model to reflect that their TRUE business (as stated in their corporate mission statement) is not to help employers seeking employees find employees seeking jobs, but actually are in business to sell advertising on their website (look it up!) Anybody who happens to get a job through this medium has literally beaten the odds, greater odds that winning the New York lottery.

What DOES happen is that your resume is sucked into the ether and propagated throughout by anybody who wished to get it (you gave them this permission when you signed onto the website the first time.) So ANYBODY is able to see, review, and forward your resume to anybody else, even your current boss or partners. Also, you will be ruthlessly hounded by so-called “search firms” that for a substantial fee will “assist” you in landing your career – in which they mean they will blitz email your resume to every firm they can think of for every position they can find whether you are qualified for that position or even want that position. And then your name goes into the spam pile, never to be seen again.

So the bottom line is not to blindly use these job forums except as a research and learning tool. Try to concentrate on the dedicated medical and industry sites. Two of the best are Biospace (www.biospace.com) and Medzilla (www.medzilla.com). Sign up with fake names, create an email specifically for this purpose at Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo, and DO NOT post a real resume (yet.) SEARCH the forums for the jobs that are out there (use search terms such as Physician, Research, Director and possibly your specialty.) Specifically look at the requirements that they seek, such as years of experience, qualifications, etc. Look for jobs that may substitute industry experience for being a principal investigator, etc. Also realize that these job requirements are fantasy wish lists – i.e. an employer is not going to get lots of candidates with 10 years of industry experience for a Director or Excutive Director job. You can try to contact the search firms posting the job, but generally all you will get is a knee jerk request to forward your resume. If the company itself is listed, go to their web site and see if you can get more information about the posiiton, what department it might be in, and (in nirvana land) the name of the hiring manager.

Do not expect to get a lot of activity from sites like this. Most companies do not blindly post jobs – they will hire a “retained search firm” to find, screen and present them with the best candidates. But sometimes, particularly if you are in a specialty that is sparse in industry such as a surgical specialty, you may get lucky and hit on a company looking specifically for you.

Becoming an Investigator – Part 1

industrydoc — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:07:07 +0000

Becoming an Investigator for a Drug Company – Part 1

Of all the things you can do to get introduced to industry, becoming an investigator for a clinical drug trial is probably the easiest. It will get you exposed to industry, you may get to network with some of the major players, and you get to keep practicing medicine as you are now, within reason. It will even make you some money, sometimes enough to warrant new staff, office expansion, and possibly even a sideline career as a professional investigator site if your new business running trials takes off.

Is there an area of your practice you either subspecialize in, or just happen to seen a large number of patients in? Is it a “hot” disease state like cancer, diabetes or depression? If it is something like toe fungus, maybe you should find another disease. Nothing against toe fungus, but if your best treatments are all over the counter, you are not going to find very many companies throwing a lot of money at it. Lots of potential patients makes you attractive to a drug company as a potential investigator site. Anyway, just look over the drugs you most commonly prescribe every day for this disease, go to the websites of the companies who manufacture those drugs, and see if there is any mention of ongoing research for that drug. If so, great. More on what to do later.

If you can’t find anything obvious on the drug manufacturer’s website, the next step is to see if there any registered trials. These you find at www.clinicaltrials.gov, the site where all clinical trials are registered once they are ready to enroll patients.

www.clinicaltrials.gov Home Page

Click on Search for Clinical Trials to start the process – you will come to this window:

Basic Search

Type in a disease or drug that you may be interested in – for example, hypertension & diabetes in this case:

Basic Search - hypertension & diabetes

Here you now see a list of all trials that have been registered with these diagnoses and their status – recruiting, completed or other. Click on an individual trial for particulars about the drug being investigated in this trial. Once you know the drug, you can find out the name of the “sponsor” – the drug company running the trial.

So you’ve found your drug and/or trial you may be interested in – Now What?

You now need to get your name in the system of the drug company in question. The first thing you do is to contact the drug rep for the company. They will know the inside lines to the medical research people. Simply let the rep know that you are interested in becoming an investigator for the clinical drug trial. You will be contacted very soon if they still need new sites for the trial.

If you don’t know the rep or how to contact them, back to the PDR – any of the company’s drugs will have the Medical Information phone line listed – simply call it, tell them of your interest and they will either forward you immediately to the clinical research folks or take your information for a call back. Chances are good that you will soon be on your way to becoming an investigator in your first trial.

For what is needed to be an investigator, click here for part 2.

Getting an MBA

industrydoc — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:59:45 +0000

Master of Business Administration. It just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? Well as I said in my opinion those three letters will do more to advance your career that anything else. Why? Because in lots of cases the people you want to work for will have them and it shows you are part of the exclusive club. And here’s a little known fact: you may never need to use the things you learned! Welcome to the corporate world where appearances are everything.

Also, unless you want to become a CPA at a major accounting firm, you don’t need to get the degree from Harvard Business School or Stanford. Nobody will know unless you tell them or you have the diploma on the wall. Certainly, very few will ask. All that matters is that you get to put the letters behind your name.

So what are the issues involved? Lets look at a few.

1. Time

When was the last time you really had to read / study / take tests? Your Boards? Inservice exams? How long ago? Were you married at the time? Have kids? Taking lots of call? Other time pressures? Well, guess what, you now are looking at getting another 24 credit hours of graduate school on the side. That means classes, books to read, research and homework, papers to write and “participation” exercises. I guarantee you that once you start, you can kiss the next two years of your weekends and free time goodbye, if you want to get it done expeditiously. Take “vacations” and you 1) won’t want to start up again each time and 2) it will just take that much longer.

2. Money

Have you priced graduate school lately? Even at state funded programs you are looking at $2,000 per course, triple that at private schools. Maybe this is not an issue for you – if so, great. But if it is, then sometimes there are ways you can get it paid for you. Are you part of a BIG organization that technically makes you an employee? Do they have an education reimbursement program? See if you can get them to foot the bill as “continuing education” i.e. necessary skills for your job (think up some reason that these skills will improve your value to them – increased management duties, whatever.) Just be sure that it is furthering your “current duties,” not “new career training” or else they can’t deduct it as a tax write-off and will either charge it to you as income, or deny you outright.

Note: If you ALREADY have an industry job then this is the PERFECT opportunity to expand your skills and value at their expense, and they may even cut you some slack in time pressure! Just be sure to keep your boss informed on what courses you are working on and how you are doing so that they feel they are getting their money’s worth.)

Else, if it all is coming out of your pocket, then seek out the cheapest alternatives, some will let you pay out in installments, others not.

3. Bricks & Sticks, Online or Hybrid?

So where to get the degree? There are many options with more every day. It depends on your personality and study habits, as well as convenience / geography.

Local Colleges / Traditional Classroom:

Always a nice option if you can pull it off. Requires physical proximity to the school and the ability to attend regularly scheduled classes. Are you a surgeon or OB-Gyn with long hours or do you have to be on call frequently or irregularly? These teachers do not take kindly to excuses and you will need almost a guaranteed time schedule from your partners / boss. Don’t forget the wife / kids / sports commitments etc. Night school is almost a given. Classroom participation may decrease some of the homework and writing requirements. Study groups are easier to set up, and the face to face interaction will substitute for lots of the “interaction” participatory exercises necessary for the other options.

Home Study / “1 weekend a month” Programs:

These are hybrid programs where the majority of your training is home study or online but then they want you physically present for one solid weekend a month (and sometimes an additional 3 consecutive weeks in the summer) for face-to-face class work. Again, physical proximity can be a problem as some of these programs may require travel due to where they are located (lots in the northeast and east coast.) These are usually more costly travel wise but they may be easier cost/time-wise the rest of the month. There is usually the necessity for more writing and online work due to less overall classroom exposure.

Again, be sure that these are true garden variety MBA degrees and not the accelerated Executive degrees for physicians.

100% Online MBA Programs:

With the advent of universally available, relatively cheap broadband internet access came the beginnings of “long-distance learning” – basically virtual classrooms where all course materials, student-teacher interaction, assignments and tests are all found online. These have now advanced to the point where many state and private universities have online programs for both undergraduate and graduate studies. You literally never need to attend the classroom or the campus, not even for your own graduation. To get an idea of the scope of programs available, simply Google for “long distance learning programs.”

The benefits of such programs are that they are completely under your own schedule, as far as doing the work. There are hard limits as to when work is due (usually Sunday by 8:00 PM, Monday 8:00 AM. etc.) But otherwise you can read / study / write on your schedule, not theirs. If you are good with the internet, and can type reasonably well, this is a good option for a busy professional without the ability to commit to a fixed schedule of hours.

The downside is that since there is no face to face interaction, all assignments tend to be mandatory written assignments, sometimes quite voluminous, on the order of 10 -15 typewritten pages or more at times. Each. Per week. For 8 – 12 straight weeks. For each course. Also, there will usually be some form of bulletin-board type of messaging system where you get to “participate” and post opinions on a teacher’s topic and respond / rebut to your fellow classmates’ posts. But, if you have even a modicum of ability to b.s. your thoughts and opinions on paper, you will be amazed as to your abilities to put out masterpieces of loquaciousness. Also, remember the ability to quote others (properly referenced, of course.)

It is my opinion that if you are a busy practicing physician without a large number of partners, this option is one to seriously check out. Some of the ones I am familiar with are the University of Arizona, Regis University, and several in Pennsylvania, all with good reputations. Some even tailor themselves to a pharmaceutical career,(i.e. for sales reps looking to enter management) and concentrate the lessons to issues common to the pharmaceutical industry.

4. What if you don’t want to wait for two years before joining industry?

Certainly there is no need to hold off your search for an industry job just because you don’t have your MBA on your wall yet. But, remember the probable need for relocation, travel, etc.for your new position so that your choice of HOW you get your MBA becomes even more relevant. And this increases the benefit of a 100% online program. But that’s just my opinion.

At any rate, place it prominently in your resume that you are in the process of obtaining your MBA, and the month/year you expect to get the degree.

Online Applications & CV’s (Electronic CV’s)

industrydoc — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:30:26 +0000

This post discusses online applications (also known as electronic CV’s). It is extremely important that you do not confuse this with the online job hunting sites like Monster.com. That will be the topic of a later post.

For better or worse we now live and work in the electronic information age. So in order for HR to justify their jobs, they have invented these involved web job application procedures that you are OBLIGED to use, so that you can be “screened ” efficiently. I will discuss HR and their processes more later, but for now suffice it to say that in many large companies you are at their mercy, at least for the first cut. And if you don’t stack the deck in your favor, you will suffer for it.

Although there are many more sites and books that can cover this in much greater detail, the main issue is that you have to fill in an application to THEIR requirements, even if that would not showcase your abilities in the best light. It puts all the entries in a database and allows them to search hundreds of CV’s at a time “efficiently.” Fail to make the computerized cut and you’ll never hear from them again. But at least most have a free form comment box at the end, into which you can shamelessly paste your preferable CV information.

So what to do? Again, try to find out the hiring manager’s name and talk to them. If you can’t, then fill out the online CV as best as you can using the information of the paper CV to your best advantage.

There is another form of hybrid CV that you send in, they scan it and then parse it into a program that screens for information. This is where KEYWORDS come in – words that are searched for when they are screening CV’s for candidates. If you figure out that this is their MO, then you need to alter your CV to maximize your chances (there are books on this stuff too.)

What to do? First, get rid of all fancy formatting – separator lines, bullets, indenting, bold fonts, larger fonts, etc. Get it down to a single font, something easy to scan like a Helvetica, 12 points. Lose all the bullets and replace them with single dashes. Then add an additional category of keywords near the top and fill it with your qualifications (Medical affairs, research, clinical trial management, etc.) Hopefully this will increase your chances of hitting a screening category so that you get that first important call.