Are you on the MedComms Path? Fascinating Freelance versus In-House Insights

Alex Howson (00:01.238)

Welcome Vicki.

Vicky (00:03.698)

Hi, hi Alex.

Alex Howson (00:05.058)

Good to see you. We are on time differences here. We're at the end of Vicky's day and we're at the very beginning of mine. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Vicky (00:17.705)

Sure. So my name is Vicki Sherwood. I am a medical writer by profession and I work in the medical communication space. I'm currently a freelancer, but I've worked for Big Pharma. I've worked for agencies who provide med-com services to the pharma industry. And prior to that, I was a career academic. And I also write a blog about medical writing, about

med.coms and also working in the pharma industry more widely called Biomed Badass. So I'm delighted to join you here today on your podcast Alex.

Alex Howson (00:55.398)

I will make sure that there's links in the show notes to your blog. And I'm just going to interrupt here. We'll edit this bit out. You might notice that the video goes grainy. That's totally fine. The final product won't be. It's just something it does. Low data. Great. So tell us a little bit about your journey from academia into Medcoms.

Vicky (01:23.817)

So I guess I came to Medcoms quite late actually in my career. And if I'd known about it earlier, I might have made the jump a lot sooner. So I was actually a PI, I was a principal investigator when I left academia. I was running a research group on metastatic skin cancer research. So it was very kind of translational, but still there was a lot of basic molecular biology kind of work we were doing.

and I was doing that at the University of Dundee in Scotland. And I was just getting a little bit tired with the academic system in as much as I felt like I'd moved away so much from the lab bench and I was just doing a lot of admin work for the department, some teaching, although I had a research fellowship, so it wasn't too much teaching, fortunately, but there was still a lot.

and I was doing an awful lot of grant writing and trying to get money for the group. And so I didn't feel like I was any more doing kind of the really hardcore kind of science, exciting science stuff. My group were doing that, which was really great and interesting. But for me, I just couldn't see myself doing it for another 20 years. So because my research had a bit of a translational edge and there was also there was always an idea that, you know, it might translate to potentially.

some kind of medical product in the future. I was interested in the pharma industry and I was interested in how my skills might be able to be used in the pharma industry. So I hadn't decided to leave academia, but I thought I'd go on a little research project of my own and I met loads of people on LinkedIn who were working in biopharma and I talked to them about their jobs and just tried to get an idea of kind of the different kind of roles and responsibilities that were on offer in the pharma industry outside of.

maybe just the R&D, which of course, you know, is the obvious thing for most research scientists to move into. And it was just serendipitous that I ended up speaking to somebody who worked in medical communications. And she was telling me what she did, that she wrote articles and publications and that she wrote PowerPoint presentations for congresses. And she was analyzing the latest data that was coming out in phase three trials and

Alex Howson (03:24.565)

Mm.

Vicky (03:46.381)

not analysing but interpreting them and writing them up for publication. And she was also involved in a load of scientific meetings and I thought wow that sounds like all the things that I really enjoy about being a scientist because I really enjoyed the communication side I think a little bit more than the research when I looked back on what I enjoyed. So I was that PhD student who actually

Alex Howson (04:01.966)

Right.

Vicky (04:07.549)

didn't hate writing their thesis. I can't say I loved it, but my colleagues at the time were pulling their hair out and I was thinking, it's not that bad, I think there's aspects of this that I quite enjoy. I enjoyed writing papers and I enjoyed going to congresses and writing the abstracts and putting the PowerPoint presentation together. So if I'd known there was a job around that, that aspect of being a scientist, not just actually doing the research, I may well have thought about med-cons a lot earlier.

So after I'd spoken to this lady, I thought, wow, you know, I'm gonna have to explore this more. I spoke to more medical writers doing the job. And eventually through that kind of networking and connection with the Medcoms industry, I eventually got introduced to hiring managers, people that would potentially think about me in a Medcoms writing role. And I was...

asked to send through my CV, I had an opportunity to do that, was invited to interview, and that's essentially how I got my first break into the med comms industry, was really through networking and learning more about it. And yeah, I have not looked back, I can honestly say. Of course there's aspects of the research that I was really interested in, and saying goodbye to the research team and everything that was really difficult, and I miss aspects of that, but my career

Alex Howson (05:26.358)

Thanks for watching!

Vicky (05:29.541)

is far better suited to who I am as a person and what I enjoy about being a scientist than my previous research lab bench kind of career was.

Alex Howson (05:40.79)

Can we talk a little bit about, and I didn't realise you were at the University of Dundee, I was at Edinburgh and Aberdeen for a long time. Can we talk a little bit about, you mentioned networking, because for writers who are newer to the field, of course, this is still standard advice that, you know, most of us receive at the beginning of our relationship with medical writing.

Vicky (05:45.598)

Thank you.

Alex Howson (06:05.29)

But a lot of people shy away from networking because, you know, they see themselves as introverts. They don't know how to do it. Is that something that you mentor medical writers on? Is that something that you hear people getting angsty about? And how important is networking now in 2023 to landing Medcom's positions or even freelance work?

Vicky (06:31.337)

So, I mean, I was always that kind of academic who thought, oh, networking was kind of some sleazy activity that involved selling yourself or having to oversell yourself and be extroverted and work the room and dress to impress and all these falsities, I guess I had in my head about what networking actually was. And if I look back in hindsight, if I'd been better at connecting with people and making connections with people, my academic career might be even more, might be more stellar, I don't know.

It's difficult to say, but when I decided that I was going to leave academia, I had no choice, because I literally didn't have anyone in my network really who wasn't an academic. I'd spent so long in academia, my entire network, everybody I hung around with were academics, and that's all they knew. So if I was going to think possibly about doing another job, I'd need to connect with people who were doing those other jobs, because that's how I was going to find out.

what the right jobs were for me. And as I explained, that's how I came across Medcoms, otherwise I would never have known about it as a career path. So for me, networking during that transition was essential. But as I did that networking, what I realized was that it was also incredibly important to grow my career as well going forward. So I was able to enter an industry way better connected than if I just applied for a job and gone in.

I'd already spoken to lots of medical writers, I already knew kind of the MedComs UK landscape a little bit, you know, I knew who the top players were in terms of the agencies, I knew which pharma companies were writing, which contract research organisations had in-house writers as well, so I kind of understood a little bit more about the landscape and I also had connected with people and spoken to them about it.

Alex Howson (08:08.412)

Mm-hmm.

Vicky (08:25.309)

And that really helped me grow my career as well. So for example, if I wanted to expand my CV and the types of projects I've worked on, I could reach out to people and see what their employers were focusing on. Were they say doing different types of projects that might be interesting and might there be a route in there for me to get some work? And now as I've become a freelancer as well, those connections are incredibly important. In fact, I've found all

my work as a freelancer organically through word of mouth so far. I think once people know you're trained and once you've got those connections, that tends to be how work comes to you in the large part. I've yet to secure work through a recruitment agency, for example. So personally, I'm a big believer in networking and I think networking can work for everyone. I mean, I'm not massively extroverted in any way. I'm certainly not a salesperson.

but I think by just using my authentic voice and being genuine and being inquisitive and trying to be a good listener, which lots of introverts are really good listeners, and that can really help. I mean, I've managed to make networking work for me and it's enabled me to extend my career. Now that's not to say you can't find jobs on job boards, you absolutely can, but I think when you're looking at a career transition or you're looking at a change of a career,

Alex Howson (09:29.358)

Mm-hmm.

Vicky (09:53.157)

If you're going against people on the job board who already have experience, you know, those job boards are candidate magnets, and you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. If there's other ways you can find jobs, such as through networking and being introduced to the right individuals, you're just increasing your chances and shortening the time it will take you to find something that's suitable. So I think, you know, yeah, something a multi...

Alex Howson (10:16.167)

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah.

Vicky (10:20.345)

a channeled approach towards a job search is the best way in my opinion.

Alex Howson (10:24.998)

Yeah. And you've worked in both in-house and working freelance now. So what are some of the kind of major differences you see in the type of work that you do? And well, I guess we'll just start with that.

Vicky (10:41.181)

So the differences between in-house and freelancing. I mean, there's with everything in life, right, there's pros and cons to each, right, and there's some things I prefer about being in-house and something I prefer about being a freelancer. So for me personally, I think the biggest difference is that obviously you're not embedded in a team when you're a freelancer, whereas when you're in-house, you will be in a

Alex Howson (10:44.365)

Mm-hmm.

Vicky (11:11.489)

other people who support those writers as well. So things like an in-house studio team, potentially editors, your manager and other people that will be supporting you. When you're a freelancer, I mean, it varies because you can sometimes take contracts where they kind of pull you into the team, but often you'll just be working individually by yourself. So for somebody like me who likes collaboration, that's one of the biggest things I miss as being a freelancer.

But freelancing also gives you some more flexibility. You know, you're a business owner, you can kind of choose the projects you want to work on, to some degree, the hours you want to work as well, and try and negotiate what works best for you on a particular contract. So, you know, there's that side of it's probably, you've got more control say, than you have as an in-house writer. But on the day-to-day work, it's very similar. I think...

I've pretty much worked on projects, similar projects in-house as I have as a freelancer. But as a freelancer as well, you can, as I said, choose more the contracts you want to do. So for example, freelancing recently, I've had the opportunity to work with a PR company, as opposed to a MedCons agency. So I've been able to do a little bit more commercial medical writing, which I haven't been able to do in the past. So you can as well kind of...

Alex Howson (12:28.96)

Mm.

Vicky (12:37.773)

expose yourself to new things and new projects as a freelance that you may not be able to do in-house if your company only works in say a very narrow niche within medical writing, you might kind of get funneled into just sticking in that area. So yeah, I think as I said, pros and cons to both. I've enjoyed both. There are frustrations with both. So it just depends.

Alex Howson (12:48.546)

Mm.

Alex Howson (13:03.723)

And when you're talking about working on MedCon's projects, can you talk a little bit about the range of projects that you might be working on, you know, I guess, as a freelancer at any one time?

Vicky (13:20.925)

Mm hmm. I mean, Medcoms is a hugely diverse area and it's actually incredibly difficult to define. But I like to talk about it as like the development of kind of written audiovisual, audiovisual online materials, a variety of those, dealing with kind of medicine and health care and disseminating that information to different audiences across an entire product's lifecycle. And that could be a medical device.

Alex Howson (13:27.164)

Mm-hmm.

Alex Howson (13:48.75)

Thanks for watching!

Vicky (13:49.397)

a drug. So it's a very, very broad area. And it can be broadly divided into two main areas, I think you've got your standard kind of scientific publication. So that's your manuscripts, abstracts, posters, or presentations could be things like white papers, maybe patient centric materials like plain language, summaries, that type of thing. And then you've got kind of health communications, which are

of educational materials I think for the healthcare industry that the biopharma company interested in educating the healthcare industry about. So those could be things like anything from like videos and webcasts through to like workshops, symposia, webinars, meetings where the pharma company might be gathering insights from the healthcare community. So it really is hugely broad.

And so from a week to week basis, I can find myself working on things like kickoff meetings for a manuscript through to agenda setting for an advisory board through to, as I mentioned before, like PR or some kind of brand development discussions around a website, newsletters, book chapters, even booth materials for congresses. So it can be really, really diverse. I mean, there's no reason to ever get bored in med-coms.

Alex Howson (15:13.39)

Thanks for watching.

Vicky (15:13.541)

and had some really good advice when I first entered the industry from a very senior colleague and an agency and she said to me, if you ever find yourself stuck or kind of working on the same project, not expanding or growing yourself or growing your CV in this area, there's always something else to work on. There's always another type of project, you might need to go and find it from another employer, you might need to you know go and actually...

push yourself forward and ask for these projects, but there's always something in MedCons that can be different and that you can be learning. And I've been in this industry for just over seven years now and I can honestly say no two weeks have been the same. I have continued to push myself and learn different things. So it is quite an exciting space and it's an ever-changing space as well. So there's new things and new aspects to my job all the time that I'm still trying to learn.

And even if you talk to people who've been in the industry for 20 years or so, they'll say similar things. Be it a new therapeutic area or a new type of interaction or engagement that they're working on, there's always something to push yourself forward and grow. So if you like kind of learning, reading, writing, and talking about new discoveries in the clinical space, I think MedCon has a lot to offer.

Alex Howson (16:17.518)

Mm.

Alex Howson (16:42.844)

And what about some of the challenges? So one challenge that I'm thinking of here, especially for people who are kind of, you know, early career and moving into the field are compliance issues. What are some of the ways in which, you know, in your experience, writers can learn about, you know, the compliance.

frameworks that set parameters around how they can write about particular topics, what can be said, what can't be said, that kind of thing.

Vicky (17:15.921)

Yeah, so I mean, that's probably the biggest missing piece from anybody coming from a scientific training background into this area. They'll be missing that compliance understanding. And you get that from basically being on the job. So a lot of agencies now will have like a training program. So you'll join and then they'll talk you through a variety of training materials to get you on board as quickly as possible and get you ready to work with clients.

And a large portion of that will be around compliance. But I can honestly say in my career, I've learned a lot from senior colleagues who have basically just, you know, as we've discussed things and thought about strategy and how we may best communicate a particular piece of information to the healthcare industry where a senior colleague has said, well, we better be careful there. We better check if that's something we could say, or if we've got to think about whether or not that will be perceived as maybe being promotional for something.

for a drug that maybe isn't approved in that indication. So it's always, I mean, hopefully you'll be embedded in a team when you're starting out with senior colleagues who are more experienced and will be able to pick up on these types of things and discuss that with you. And it's just over time, just trying a lot of different projects and seeing.

whether or not that will fit within the regulations. And of course the regulations and the guidelines are changing as well all the time. So it's important to try and keep up with those. So for example, in the publication space, there's guidelines around how we interact with authors, how we deal with authors for manuscripts and for other types of publications like abstracts and posters. And those guidelines were just updated last year.

Alex Howson (18:45.072)

Mm.

Vicky (19:04.105)

the good publication practice guidelines of 2022. So it's important when guidelines are updated like that, that you go away and you read them and you get the summary information and you understand that you can, now you need to apply these new changes to your practice. So it's just kind of keeping on top of it. And you should, in a good agency or a good company that's up to date with all this, you should be getting all that training anyway. So.

Alex Howson (19:06.321)

Mm-hmm.

Vicky (19:35.138)

you will be trained initially when you start the game. So, and then you will pick it up from your scene as you go through.

Alex Howson (19:36.134)

and we'll make sure to.

I'm sorry. Yeah.

No, that's really helpful advice, and I'll make sure to link to the good practice guidelines in the show notes. One of the things that I'm seeing a lot of at the moment, and I wonder if you are too, is that there are a lot of people who are kind of moving into freelance medical writing with backgrounds as academics, clinicians, researchers, you know, very tired, very frustrated.

Vicky (19:44.166)

or you would think.

Alex Howson (20:10.89)

with those professional contexts. And they see medical writing as a great way to continue to focus on science, focus on clinical care, those types of things. But they don't necessarily have the framework of, they're looking for freelance work. They don't necessarily have the experience and the background of having worked in a med comms agency or.

you know, in my field, working in continuing medical education in some in-house capacity. And so they don't have, they don't necessarily have that framework for thinking about the different types of projects that are available or the compliance resources that they need to be thinking about in order to support their work. What, so...

you know, first of all, are you seeing that kind of shift? And second, what are some of the places where people can get support for moving into to freelance work? And a lot of people would would, you know, counsel against that. But I think we're seeing a lot of that at the moment.

Vicky (21:25.529)

Yeah, I've seen a lot of people, and I've seen people who've been very successful who have done that as well, and seem to have long established successful writing careers, and yet they have never had an in-house position. And I'd be intrigued to learn more from them because the only thing I can imagine is it must have been a very steep learning curve to begin with, because those two years in an agency that I spent when I first got into the industry were really, you know, provided me foundational understanding.

Alex Howson (21:37.838)

and I'll see you next time.

Vicky (21:55.013)

of the industry and enabled me to ensure that my writing was compliant and was with regulations, kept within the regulations. And I understood also a little bit about how the pharma companies operate. And you know, you can't just write an abstract in an afternoon as you can in academia and then submit it to the journal because it needs to be checked by seven levels, you know, including the lawyers. So there's lots of nuances about writing in med-coms that are very different to writing in the office.

Alex Howson (22:16.386)

Right.

Vicky (22:24.301)

in academia, even though the actual scientific writing, you know, would be very similar. It's like, you know, data interpretation and then working out, you know, what the important scientific messages are and then writing about those in a clear and transparent way. That's the essence of it. And that's what your scientific training will give you. But the whole framework of how it's delivered and how it's done, you would learn that when you move into the industry, it's different. So I take my hat off to people that just step right in.

When I've spoken to people, because people do reach out to me through the blog, who are in that position, who are offering writing and maybe haven't had an in-house position, I often find that they're doing a lot of kind of health care writing. So maybe like social media writing, a little bit maybe more on the commercial side of what I would class more commercial medical writing than maybe kind of standard pubs and med-ed, hardcore med-coms.

And I just wonder if that's because without that background and that training, if agencies or pharma companies would be more reluctant to come to you for that kind of writing, because you haven't had that training. Now, obviously I'm, you know, being very broad here and I'm sure there's examples of people who are writing for Medcoms agencies without maybe in-house Medcoms agency training. But I have yet to come across those individuals. And I do think that

If your target is to work with big pharma companies or agencies who as clients are big pharma companies, I think the best thing you can do is try and go and get yourself a little bit of in-house training and you only need a year or so I think before you're really up to speed with what you need to know. If nothing else you'll know what those guidelines are, you'll know when the expected updates are so you can keep yourself up to date with these types of things and get yourself on the right training.

I mean, you can also join like Amwa and Emwa, so Emwa in Europe and Amwa in the US. And they often provide updates and training around, maybe is map guidelines and things like that, that are changing that you can sign up to and attend. So that can keep you up to date. But generally, I think it would, to attract those high paying clients from pharma and Medcoms agencies, it's probably best to go and get yourself.

Alex Howson (24:33.445)

Mm-hmm.

Vicky (24:49.333)

bit of training under your belt in house and also building those connections because when you leave to go and freelance you'll then have built those connections and as I said most of my work at least comes organically just through word of mouth through people reaching out to me so you know once you've done a couple of years you'll find that's probably the same for you as well so I just wonder if people who don't have that training how easy it is for them to find

clients, paying clients as well. Presumably, managing, as I said, lots of appeared to be successful at that.

Alex Howson (25:27.463)

Yeah, it's interesting and I think this kind of speaks to one of the things that we were talking about before we hit record, which is that very wide definition of what medical writing is. Because a lot of people who will call themselves medical writers are working in that healthcare space where they're doing perhaps more consumer health writing or

Alex Howson (25:53.086)

I'm not in that space, so I don't actually know much about it. But I do see a lot of activity on LinkedIn postings from people who are who look like they're probably in that space. And I can speak to I mean, I left academia with no. No network and no experience of working in med comms, but I didn't land in med comms, I landed in continuing medical education. And I do think that that's definitely a field where

It's very freelance heavy. There are far fewer in-house opportunities than there are in MedComs. And most of the people who can end up here seem to make their own way in one way or another. But it is a steep learning curve, as you say. Can we talk a little bit about some of the challenges of working on the promotional side and the type of content that's required?

you know, on the promotional side or some of the problems that you might have encountered in doing that kind of work.

Vicky (27:00.502)

Do you mean from a compliance perspective or just generally?

Alex Howson (27:06.506)

Yeah, I guess I'm kind of assuming that sometimes promotional work can be a little bit controversial because it takes us back to that question of what you can and what you can't say.

Vicky (27:17.361)

Yeah, I mean, it's completely different. I know you're based in North America and I'm in Europe. And of course the rules are very different around advertising drugs between the two continents. We just can't advertise anything here. So, working for like a standard advertising agency, you would only be doing kind of US work. But I mean, my background is more in the traditional kind of med-coms around like...

publication and education rather than promotion. Although as a freelancer, I have taken more promotional contracts more recently around say public relations work, writing website content, this type of thing. So I'm getting a bit more up to date with kind of commercial writing. I mean, that said, as a Medcoms writer, you can sometimes have clients who are in the commercial arm of the business farmer company.

And then you really do need to know a little bit about your compliance, about what can and can't be said, and around particular drugs and being very careful about what it says. If it is a licensed drug on a package insert, you know, which patient populations you can talk about in that context. Because you know, you can't be saying anything that's off label, you know, openly.

that's going to be published or released. So, you know, you do have to be careful. You do have to know your compliance. That's all I would say. And yeah, I mean, as I said, I've not worked that much in commercial writing myself. I probably, 75% of my experience has been more kind of on the educational side and more kind of what I would call my hardcore med-coms kind of publications and insight gathering.

work.

Alex Howson (29:15.022)

Well, let's talk about the education side just a little bit before we wrap up. What are the main types of projects that you work on the education side and how does that differ from? And we get into some real differences here in the between the US and Europe in terms of accredited medical education. But if you could just talk a little bit about what working on the education side involves as.

you know, either an in-house or a freelance writer.

Vicky (29:47.997)

So I think when I'm talking about education in the med comm space, I'm talking more about educating the healthcare community about updates to either existing products or drugs that are going to come onto the market soon. So for that, those types of projects, as I said, they can be quite varied. So they can be about disseminating information to the community, or they can be about gathering insights.

into the pharma company as well about what the healthcare community thinks or about maybe a particular product or what's where there may be gaps for the patients that need, you know, more understanding or more research around or maybe, you know, new compound that's needed to help a particular population. So the kind of the health, I would call that health communications and it falls into those two categories. So either disseminating information or

kind of gathering insights from the healthcare community. So it's kind of this two way relationship between kind of learning from each other in a way. So pharma companies will sponsor a lot of things to enable the healthcare community to understand more about their products. So things like, you know, symposia, congresses, online webinars, webcasts,

training guides, sometimes just infographics that can be released to try and get the information across more clearly, workshops are quite a common tool as well, and then kind of those insight gatherings meetings that I've worked on more would be kind of the advisory boards where you invite kind of experienced key opinion leaders in a particular area and you will carefully craft the kind of questions you want to ask to try and understand more.

Alex Howson (31:33.882)

Mm.

Vicky (31:43.701)

about that landscape and about that patient population and how the pharma company might be able to help in the future or with their existing products or the pipeline of products that they've got. So again, it's quite varied and quite wide, but when I talk about education, I guess that's what I'm kind of talking about, both education for the pharma company itself and education from the pharma company to the healthcare community.

Alex Howson (32:12.911)

Now, I think it's an important description because a lot of people who, especially who come from academia and clinical backgrounds, are attracted to that kind of work. And having that nice division between information for and information from, I think is really, really helpful. Before we hit record, we were talking about the MedComs gathering that you were at Heathrow.

Vicky (32:22.601)

No.

Alex Howson (32:36.81)

What are you seeing, just to kind of wrap up, what direction is Medcom's taking? What excites you most? What gives you most pause? 2023, some people would say has been a little bit of an off year. There's been a lot of angst and uncertainty in the market. What's your take?

Vicky (32:59.921)

Yeah, so I think the angst came from the fact that we have seen the farmer companies themselves undergoing a lot of change. Prior to 2023 I was working in-house at a very large farmer company and they were contracting areas of their business and lots of farm companies and biotech companies have been doing that this year as well. And that's going to have a knock-on effect to any third-party providers for the industry generally.

as they kind of cut back their budgets and rearrange and redirect where money will go and change their strategy going forward. But I do think, you know, I'm hoping and I'm feeling fairly confident that we're probably over the biggest hump of that. So at the beginning of the year, when I left the pharma company, I started freelancing, a lot of freelancers were saying, well, it's really quiet, we're struggling to find work, we're careful about coming into this space.

But I think as the years gone on, traction has slowly gained. And I think as the farmer companies start to, you know, the dust settles and they start to get on top of their strategy. In this last quarter, they will be really pushing, I think, for, you know, gaining traction back again and reaching out to Medcoms agencies. And just in the past couple of weeks, I've had lots of people reach out to me saying, we've suddenly had this last minute project.

are you free to work on X, Y and Z? So that gives me a good feeling that actually, you know, maybe there is a change going into 2024, hopefully, we will start to see growth again. And in fact, I was looking at this the other day, the Medcoms industry is expected to grow and it's expected to grow about 18% year on year until at least 2027, that's the projected forecast. So that's strong growth. So that must be driven by forecasting to think that the

Alex Howson (34:27.383)

Okay.

Alex Howson (34:47.751)

Mm.

Alex Howson (34:52.398)

Mm.

Vicky (34:55.293)

the pharma industry is still going to heavily invest in how it communicates to wider stakeholders. So I think it's bright and rosy. Obviously everybody's talking about AI and how AI may affect the industry going forward. My personal opinion is I do feel it's going to be transformational in the med comm space. I'd love to learn more from you, Alex, about how you feel, how it's going to change continuing medical education.

Alex Howson (35:13.907)

Yes.

Vicky (35:25.117)

I mean, there's still a lot of skepticism from certain stakeholders and people saying that, you know, it'll be slow to be taken up, regulators won't be on board quickly enough. But I think the impetus of what it can do and how it can speed up and change productivity will push it forward. So from things, you know, such as content review.

things like gap analysis, I work on literature searches. I mean, it can look for patterns that would take teams a long time, large medical writing teams to find, it can do a lot quicker. And so, and even things like language translation, I mean, to try and get our MedCons content, you know, for local geographies, it's sometimes been very challenging to get that quickly enough into particular areas globally.

Alex Howson (36:10.672)

Mm.

Vicky (36:20.485)

And I think, you know, if you've got language tools that are up to the task, farmer companies are going to employ them. So I think there's a lot of areas, um, that will see changes happening. And already the farmer industry is taking these tools up. So we've got examples of them using, you know, chat bots, automated responses for med info. So like standard responses that people might be cut standard questions that people might be coming to the farm company with, they'll have standard responses that then a chat bot can deal with.

Alex Howson (36:43.029)

Right.

Vicky (36:49.541)

I mean, that's not quite in the Medcom space, but it's a good indication of how the pharma company is going to be quite proactive, I think, at trying to look at these things. And that will have a knock-on effect on the Medcoms industry. And we were discussing before, it's not without its challenges, right, around things like accuracy, reliability, loss of creativity, data interpretation, I don't think is there yet.

Alex Howson (37:16.051)

Mm.

Vicky (37:16.629)

privacy is a big one for the pharma industry whether or not the outputs are going to be biased and so you still need somebody with an understanding and an eye for this around the therapeutic area to be able to see these problems but I do think some of the more basic tasks may be taken off our hands and I don't think that's a bad thing because when I started my med comms career you know I spent a lot of time qc-ing data tables and checking numbers

Alex Howson (37:44.042)

Mm.

Vicky (37:44.977)

And that's very tedious work, right? And they tend to give it to more junior people for that reason. But I think if you've got a tool that can make a table very quickly from data and it's 100% accurate all the time, that need for checking goes down dramatically because people make mistakes and we model numbers up and machines tend to not do that. So I think the...

type of work will change. But this question around job displacement, I think, is still up in the air because we're definitely going to need, you know, very highly skilled Medcoms writers who can double check any work that's coming out. But also the industry itself is growing, right? I mean, there aren't enough med trained Medcoms writers already. So...

I don't see displacing the existing workforce yet, but they may have to change their workflow and their processes. And there may be some resistance to that change, I suspect, as with all things, but overall, I think I'm optimistic is what I should say.

Alex Howson (39:00.799)

Yeah, you're sounding pretty optimistic. So good news on growth there, some interesting challenges ahead in terms of the nature of work and old tedium probably being replaced with new types of tedious tasks as we move into this new kind of frontier of AI. Vicky Sherwood, freelance med comms writer, author of the Badass Blog. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and insights with listeners of Right Medicine.

Vicky (39:14.334)

potentially.

Vicky (39:29.853)

You're welcome, Alex. Thank you so much for inviting me. It was a pleasure.