SEAK faculty member gives advice for physicians who want to leave clinical medicine and get a Medical Director position in Pharma or biotech
The first thing that I recommend is have a clear understanding as to why you are making the change. Are you really unhappy with your current job? Are you just looking for something that maybe is a little bit more interesting but you still like seeing patients on a day to day basis?
Making any big career switch is going to be kind of a jarring move. It’s often a little unsettling for most people so you really have to be sure that you kind of dislike what you are currently doing enough to want to take that leap of faith. Once you do it, I think there are great opportunities. There’s great ways to apply your years of medical training and knowledge in new areas, develop new treatments that affect thousands or hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of patients versus just the patients you come in contact with every day. All the advancements in medicine today, whether it be for drugs, biotech treatments, or devices have required the expertise of physicians working internally in companies. I think it’s a great opportunity for doctors to use that knowledge to better the overall practice of medicine.