How did you hear about Healthcare Communications?
After qualifying as a pharmacist, I began researching careers within the life sciences and came across the role of ‘Scientific Director’. With a bit more research I found that the role existed within the healthcare comms industry and that was the start of my journey!
What was your first role in Healthcare Communications?
I was initially working as a trainee pharmacist in a community pharmacy when I first started to research other careers within the life sciences/pharma industry.
Once I qualified as a pharmacist, I joined the healthcare communications industry as an entry level associate (SPARK associate) at Axon Communications. The programme involved rotating around different areas of the company, which enabled me to understand all the different roles and specialities offered by organisation.
After completing the programme I became an associate medical writer while working and volunteering as a pharmacist in local community pharmacies in my spare time.
What were your career goals at the start of your career and how have these goals evolved?
My initial goals when I first started in healthcare communications were to first understand what healthcare communication was, understand the roles that exist within healthcare comms and how I could fit in.
My goals have since evolved because I have a deeper understanding of healthcare comms, much more than I did a year ago. My current goals now lie in improving my medical writing skill set and improving my interpersonal communication skills which is required to develop relationships with clients
How would you describe your role as a medical writer?
My role is to support pharmaceutical clients with the dissemination of vital information about their medicines to a variety of audiences.
What does a typical week at work look like?
My tasks tend to differ each day - I could start the week working on a presentation deck for Congress and end it by checking the data within manuscripts and figures for accuracy. More recently, I’ve been involved in researching to secure potential new business for my company.
What has been your proudest moment?
When a manuscript I worked on was published and my name was included in the acknowledgments.
What has been your greatest challenge and how did you overcome it?
One of the main challenges I experienced, coming from a healthcare/scientific background, was unlocking my creativity. Creativity is needed as a medical writer as you have to find visually engaging methods to communicate information.
It took a while for me to trust myself to be creative enough to display information in a certain way but through time, experience and feedback I'm starting to develop my own style of creativity, which has been really fun to discover!
What do you love about working in Healthcare Communications?
Healthcare communications is a sector in which you’ll never stop learning. The pharma space is an exciting, ever-evolving field. Given that healthcare communications support the activities of pharma, this sector not only allows you to be curious but encourages it.
What advice would you give someone looking to start their career in Healthcare Communications?
Start keeping up-to-date with trends within the healthcare/pharma space. Healthcare communications is a dynamic field that bridges science, compassion, and storytelling so by keeping up with what is happening in the healthcare/pharma space, you’ll start to cultivate a genuine passion for healthcare and its impact on people’s lives – a necessity for anyone working in healthcare communications.