Being an MSL is first about relationship building and then about the science behind the drug. Pharmaceutical companies sometimes get a bad reputation by the public or by health care professionals. In order to counter this initial bias, meaningful relationships with health care providers need to be formed before honest conversations can be had.
This relationship perspective could be seen in my experience as a TA in graduate school. I led a recitation session where students would come to discuss homework, ask clarifying questions, and try to connect concepts from class. Because of my age and position, I was often seen more as a peer than strictly the professor’s second-in-command. I was able to foster this relationship by sympathizing with things the students were experiencing like stress during finals and capitalizing on the energy that they brought to the first week of class. Through this relationship, it was easier for me to pass on information to the students than the professor at times because I understood where they were coming from and could better relay the information. In short, I felt more approachable.
This same concept can be applied to MSL positions. If I charge headfirst into a conversation with a health care professional, I will come across as a know-it-all pharmaceutical rep that is only interested in making connections to bolster my own career and the company’s best interest. I am a big fan of the podcast MSL Talk by Tom Caravela, and one of the concepts that is stressed by many of the guests on his show is how important it is to provide value to the company and to people you are forming relationships with.
My 3 goals as an MSL:
1. Provide value to every interaction
2. Build meaningful relationships
3. Be an expert in my therapeutic area
The pandemic has caused many health care professionals to be overworked and experience increased stress in their line of work. From my experience in shadowing clinicians in the Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine, I have seen how talking to an MSL can break up the flow of the clinic and take up valuable time from seeing patients. If I want to form a meaningful relationship with these individuals, I need to understand their perspective and not add to their workload and stress with pointless meetings or confusing presentations. In meetings with health care professionals, I want to respect their time by showing up early and being patient and understanding if they arrive late. In my presentations, I want to be clear and concise and not fill time with unnecessary information. Everyone should walk away from my meetings feeling that the time was well spent and respected.
During graduate school, my initial career goal was teaching at the collegiate level. After teaching a couple mini classes to high schoolers and TA’ing an undergraduate course, I realized that my favorite teaching moments were closer to tutoring than lecturing/teaching. I loved drawing complex concepts on the white board and breaking it down piece by piece until a student had a much better understanding of the material. What this also made me realize was that in order to effectively assess the roadblock to understanding, synthesize a wealth of information into digestible pieces, and convey the information in a clear and concise manner, I had to be an expert on the information. It’s easy to teach a simple question about a fact, but it is challenging to answer an insightful and mechanistic question. These experiences led to my interest in pursing a career as a medical science liaison and showed me the importance of ceaseless learning.
For my dissertation project, I worked in the lab of Dr. Anne West at Duke University, where we studied gene expression changes after neuronal activity. From my research, I gained expertise in the therapeutic areas of genetics and neurobiology. My research included cutting-edge genetic techniques and thorough investigation of a complex mechanism. I plan to use my experiences in graduate school to critically assess clinical trial data and understand a drug’s mechanism inside and out. My experiments often involved considering off-target effects of our manipulations, and I will bring this same mindset to assessing a drug’s effectiveness and precision to improve patient outcomes.
When it comes to presentations, I am a firm believer in “less is more”, or, a personal motto I like to live by: “Better one word heard than two ignored”. I will be presenting to a variety of audiences in my role as an MSL. These audiences will vary in size from one person to over a hundred and vary in medical expertise from nurse to a doctor with 30 years of experience. Each of these audiences require specific tailoring of information in length, complexity, and application. However, the common theme in all the presentations is providing a cohesive story with a clear take-home message. In graduate school, I have presented 4 posters, given 3 department talks, TA’d a full semester of recitation lectures, and given numerous lab meeting presentations. From these experiences, I have learned how to titrate information to a specific audience, and how to observe social cues of audience members to know when I am going too fast and when I not making sense.
Overall, I am prepared to use my scientific expertise and my communication skills to build relationships between pharma and medicine and improve patient outcomes through pharmaceutical education.