Doctor's Crossing Podcast Spark-notes: Prepare Ahead for a Transition into Pharma

Job: Senior Medical Director at Contract Research Organization, Medical Monitor for Clinical Trials

Person on Podcast: Dr. Kelly Curtis

Job She Was in Prior to Career Switch: Oncologist

What Do You Do?:

• Drug companies hire CRO to run clinical trials
• Ensuring medical safety of drugs to patients
• No direct care to patients
• Data review i.e. lab data, ecg data
• Presentation to our own team internally on what the disease is, what drug the pharmacy company wants you to study
• protocol development, working on bids to run clinical trials

How to Prepare to be a Great Candidate:

1. Short term plan 6 mons - 1 year:
   1. Write some opinion pieces i.e. JAMA has "Piece of my mind" section
   2. Write a brief article that you can get published talking around disease area, can write articles on LinkedIn profile
   3. Good Clinical Practice Course: to see if you are in line with federal regulations and codes by international bodies, from drug manufacturing to ethical enrollment, how consent forms are designed. There are free and paid courses. Around 6-7 hours per course. Can also place on your resume.
   4. Partner with sub-specialist to write book chapter vs research vs review article if you are at a private center and not at academic center.
   5. Reaching out to Medical Science Liaison
2. Longer term plan of 1-2 years:
   1. Can volunteer in institutional review board (IRB) to get familiar with how protocols work and how clinical trials work
   2. focusing on an area of interest: diabetic patients, oncology
   3. Find a clinical trial site with healthy volunteers through online search of CROs
   4. Talk to physicians in pharma
   5. Can change from primary care practice to academic practice to write research papers

Compensation:

No shortage of jobs. Just needs some work.

Resource:

1. Insider Guide to entry area through pharmacy: www.doctorscrossing.com/pharma