From Bench to Publishing…(17/04/18)

– The story of one postdoc’s move from academia to medical writing

Dr Sally Hassan is a medical writer at Envision Pharma (a medical communications agency based in greater London), but hasn’t always had this career. Before this, she was a research scientist with experience of moving between industry- and academic-based research roles. She’s been a medical writer now for over two years, producing manuscripts and other publishable outputs for biopharmaceutical clients.

I’ve had the fantastic opportunity of interviewing Sally to discover how she decided upon medical writing as a career track and what she thinks of life as a professional medical writer. Outlined below are Sally’s answers to 10 seminal questions about her career transition:

Question 1: What did you do in a previous life as a researcher?

Sally’s answer: My degree is in biochemical engineering. Biochemical engineering is a discipline that translates life science discoveries into commercial reality. It’s mainly focused on optimizing the manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals . So, it’s a very industry-focused discipline. In my final year research project, I managed to publish a short communication and I realised early on that I enjoyed research.

After my first degree, (a Master of Engineering; MEng), I ended up doing a PhD, which focused on the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) in transgenic tobacco plants. My goal was to optimise the extraction of the mAbs that were targeted to different intracellular locations. In principle, the plants could be grown in fields or greenhouses and therefore it could potentially be a more cost-effective antibody upstream production process. It was an interesting project and I published this research.

Next, I did a postdoc also in biochemical engineering, but this time trying to optimise plasmid DNA yield for gene therapy by increasing the supercoiling of plasmid DNA vectors. This was an interesting project, but by the time my contract was coming to an end, I felt that I needed more industry experience (particularly because my degree was applied and industry-focused).

I had a contact at Lonza Biologics (a contract manufacturing organisation based just outside London) and was able to obtain a job there. They manufacture products for clients in the biopharmaceutical industry for clinical trials. Here I was working as an R&D scientist, helping to optimize the downstream process of mAb purification.

This was my first exposure to working with clients. Under short timelines we needed to obtain and present results to clients. I enjoyed the communication with clients in this role, but I soon got tired of the repetitive nature of some of the lab work.

Remembering that I enjoyed research in academia, I decided to go back to the academic sector. During this process I wasn’t really thinking of the long-term, and instead I was thinking more about what it was that I enjoyed doing rather than a career path, per se. I don’t really recommend this approach to others who are thinking about their career, but at the time, I focused more on the enjoyment of what I was doing.

Ultimately, I rushed back into academia. In this second postdoc, however, I wasn’t in the lab. My project was to co-develop a computational model to optimise cell therapy manufacturing. Basically, I was looking at the different cell therapy manufacturing processes to guide decisions on choosing improve the most cost effective production process option. So, the project was very applied. It was a nice project, I enjoyed it because I enjoy learning and I had to learn coding, which was challenging because it was new to me at the time. I managed it, and encountered several bugs along the way, which was very satisfying once I managed to solve them.

At this point I was 10 years post-graduating from my MEng degree and I had developed a wide range of industry-relevant research experience.

Question 2: How did you decide upon medical writing as a career?

Sally’s answer: After my second postdoc I was offered a job in Dublin as a team leader for a small company, within the biochemical engineering sector. It would have been lab-based and involved some management responsibilities. I really liked the company, but didn’t want to leave London. So, at the last minute, after telling my former colleagues and friends I was moving to Dublin, I decided not to take the job.

At this point I realised I had never taken a break since graduating from my first degree. Even after graduation and before starting my PhD I worked on a summer lab project. I’d never actually taken a break to sit and think about a long-term career plan.

So, after I rejected the offer in Dublin, I ended up taking a year out. This was not intentional, but I found myself in a position where I didn’t want to rush into another industry role at that point. In my year out, I travelled a bit (including a lovely trip to Sicily), but I also applied for jobs. However, I didn’t really have my heart set on any of these at the time.

It was during this time that I realised that a lot of industry roles within my field would have required moving out of London and I no longer enjoyed lab work in the industry setting that much. I also knew I didn’t want to stay in academia. So despite my love of research this chapter of my life was now over.

At this point it was very difficult for me to figure out what exactly it was that I wanted to do. Researching different career options on-line didn’t give me sufficient insight into how to get into a new job, or what that job really entails.

Then I heard about the Nature Career Expo in London (Nature Jobs Careers Expo; this year it’s on the 4^th of October). I went around all the stalls. They have a lot of representation from both industry and academia (particularly from Europe). There were universities from Germany for example and lots of industries present. A visit to two key stalls made me realise that it was editing or writing positions that I was most interested in.

 Question 3: How did you make the switch into medical writing?

 Sally’s answer: I had been thinking a little bit about medical communications before attending the expo, but I didn’t have a proper view of what medical writers did before that. Envision Pharma Group had a stall at the expo. Once I got talking to the people at that stand, I developed a much clearer understanding of the role of a medical writer in publications. I really liked the company and I knew I liked publications, so I was very interested in pursuing this avenue. Things quickly developed from there. I applied for a position and it went really smoothly; the interview went really well and I was offered a medical writing position in London.

Question 4: Was there a financial implication of this career change?

 Sally’s answer: Yes, I took a pay cut. However, if you come with more experience in relevant fields, the expectation is to hopefully progress faster.

When you make a career transition, you have to be prepared to start from the beginning. It’s important to realise that you may have to take a pay cut and not everyone is prepared to do that. When I finished my first postdoc and I got a job in industry, I was a bit disappointed that there was a mind-set that my postdoc training wasn’t counted, but I soon realised that in employers eyes, direct industry experience counts for more than having years of training in academia. I think this would be the same for many fields – it is important to be mentally prepared for this, if you have done several years of postdoctoral training and want to transition into industry.

An important point to make about the medical communications industry is that once you are trained there are a lot of opportunities within it. There’s always a need for medical writers so that’s a really good thing in this industry.

Question 5: What is an average day like in your role as a medical writer?

Sally’s answer: A typical day involves balancing several different projects at different stages, responding to emails, and sitting in teleconference calls to update teams on the progress of various projects. Examples of material that I can be working on any one time range from scientific papers, posters, abstracts, oral presentations, or meeting minutes.

Question 6: What do you enjoy about medical writing? 

Sally’s answer: I really like the aspect of my current role of working in a team. In academia there is less of that, but in medical writing there’s a whole team you’re working with to deliver quality content to the client. 

Question 7: What is the biggest difference between your research life and your medical writing role?

Sally’s answer: The biggest difference is that before, in academia, I was publishing my own papers so you have your name as an author on your own work, whereas now the material I write  is not my research. Although you can’t have your name on as an author because you weren’t involved in the data generation or study concept or design etc., for transparency reasons, you will always be acknowledged.

I like the fact that this is transparent and ethical. It doesn’t bother me at all that I’m not an author because it’s not my research, I didn’t do the hard work to generate the data or come up with its concept. However, I help to get the research published, which is a critical role in disseminating new information about drugs.

Question 8: Is there anything you miss about your previous research career? 

Sally’s answer: I sometimes miss research and my field a little bit, but at the same time I don’t have any regrets. I feel I made the right choice and career transition at the right time in my life.

Upon reflection, I don’t think I would have liked to have been a professor. There was a point when I went back to do my second postdoc that I thought I would, but I preferred to avoid the pressure and stress of obtaining funding for projects and I knew it wasn’t for me. Furthermore, I was tired of being on temporary contracts. 

Question 9: What skills do you now use as a medical writer that you learned as a researcher?

Sally’s answer: On a daily basis, I use my ability to quickly understand scientific information in order to communicate key information as effectively as possible. Getting quickly up to speed on projects is an essential part of being a successful medical writer. Obviously being able to communicate effectively to a scientific audience is something I also learnt as a researcher.

My publication experience in academia is also really useful in my new role. For example, being able to respond to reviewer’s comments effectively has been an essential skill that I first honed in academia. Even though I now work in a different field, I am able to apply this experience to my work.

Question 10: What advice do you have for anyone thinking of moving into medical writing?

Sally’s answer: Talk to people within the medical writing field first and ideally people at the companies to which you’re planning on applying to.

Importantly, you need to tailor your CV to medical writing. Forget about your academic CV, it’ll need re-writing (and most likely shortening) and also try to emphasise anything that you’ve done that demonstrates that you have some experience in medical communications – presentations, posters, talking to a patient group, collaborative work etc.

Employers will want to see that you’re enthusiastic about the role, but also that you’re flexible, willing to learn, can manage projects within tight timelines, and that you are a strong communicator and a good team player. Overall, you need to demonstrate what it is that you’re bringing to the company.

So if you decide to move into medical writing, I wish you all the best for your job hunting – it really is an excellent industry to move into with lots of opportunities. Good luck!

Please post any questions about this interview below – I look forward to receiving your feedback! Thanks again Sally for showing us how to transition between academia and medical writing, you’ve provided some really useful insight into this process. If you’d like to read more about how to make a success of career transitions, subscribe to receive regular updates at www.biomedbadass.com/subscribe.