MSL Career Tips: Work-Life Balance, KOL Engagement & AI with an Industry Expert

Hello, and thank you to everyone who has joined us for this episode of Office Hours. So this, you know, if you haven't been here before, we love to bring in real MSLs who are in the field to give us, you know, their insights on what it's like to be an MSL and also, you know, how they got from what they were doing before, whether they were a clinician or in academia or in research and how they transitioned into becoming an MSL now.

So you might recognize our guest, Dr. Pamela. We had her in the end of May, I believe. And so now she's back for round two. We had a much requested return of this guest. So how we'll get started is I will ask our guests to just give a little bit of, okay, that's fine. Sorry, one second, I just got a notification.

Oh, boys. No, that's fine. So anyways, as I was saying, so what we will recap. Oh, my gosh. And rewind. Sorry.

Okay, now we're good. Now we're good. It was just having issues with streaming. But now it's fine. I just click the right button. Okay, so as I was saying, you know, the way that we have these sessions work for people who are new to our live streams is that, you know, we bring in experts, and these experts have been either clinicians or in academia.

They've been in clinical research. And we ask them, how have you transitioned from doing that to what you do now, which we speak to MSLs. So we love to get the insight straight from them on how they're going about their day to day and how they made that transition. So you might recognize our guests.

our guest we actually had on a session in May. And so she was highly requested to come back. And so we have her again today. So let's dive right into it. And so could you share a little bit about your background and what you were doing before you became an MSL?

Yeah, thanks, Swathi. And thanks to the MSL Academy for having me again. Very excited to be here. And just like Swathi said, you know, again, type in your questions. We really want to tailor this to you. But a little bit about me in the meantime. I was born in Iowa, born and raised in Iowa. Go Hawkeyes, if anyone's a Hawkeye out there. You know, I graduated from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 2012. So I've been practicing for over 30 years.

13 years now, 11 of those years were in academia, specialty, community pharmacy, and now I've been in industry for almost two years now. And, you know, I have a very supportive husband and we have three kids under nine. So it is possible. And really mainly because they, I have really, because he is so supportive and we also have parents that live close by to help us with the kiddos when I'm traveling. But again,

again, yeah, we want to tailor this to you. So get those questions in as we kind of go through some of the other ones we have planned. All right. Amazing. And, you know, as I briefly mentioned before, you know, so we actually have had Dr. Pamela with us before. And so if you want to check out our previous conversation, you can go to YouTube or the mslacademy.com under the blog section. And we have the videos available there. So we may or may not touch on, you know,

all of the key points as it pertains to how she transitioned from being in academia and being a clinician to being an MSL. But if you feel like your question wasn't answered in today's session, then feel free to go over to YouTube or the MSLacademy.com to check out our previous conversation.

Okay, so based on what you just shared about, you know, your home life versus your work life, I'd love to hear the, you know, contentious word balance is thrown around all the time. But I would love to hear, you know, how do you view balance in terms of, you know, being an MSL, being successful at your job, and also having an awesome home life?

Yeah, I think I had a pretty balanced life prior to going into an MSL role. So I was a little bit nervous about how that was going to look after going into this new career.

but it's actually been wonderful. I think they usually say, you know, you're the CEO of your territory as an MSL. So you can really plan around the important events that your family might have, that your kids have with sports. So honestly, it kind of comes in waves. So I'm traveling a lot, you know, maybe for a few weeks and then I'll have one week break. But again, I can typically plan those around,

you know times that are important you know big tournaments also i didn't miss any all-state baseball games

And, you know, I miss some of the practices. I used to go to every practice for my kids. But, you know, with three of them, that's really just not realistic. So I try to make it to whatever I can. And the big events, I've definitely made all of them. And I think, you know, it's not really you'll sometimes you'll have the big conferences or congresses. So an industry they call conferences, congresses, if you hear that, that's a new term.

But sometimes those happen twice a year and those are the biggest Congresses that you might be able to see your OLs at. So you really don't wanna miss those. So I think one year I had to miss my eight year old's Super Bowl, football Super Bowl. And then I missed like the last day of state baseball. But again, all of that with the great technology now, I got to see all that from video.

honestly, I didn't miss a thing. And, you know, FaceTime is a great opportunity that we have now to stay connected. Definitely. Oh, that's great. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, conference attendance, what that looks like as an MSL since you brought it up? Well, I guess Congress attendance, not conference attendance now. And it's just, it's also top of mind for me because I'm actually at a conference right now. So I'm

like praying that everything looks good with the Wi-Fi and everything in the hotel room doing this live right now. So yeah, can you talk a little bit about your experience at conferences as an MSL or Congresses as an MSL? And like, what are the expectations from your team? Like, what are you supposed to gain from it? And what are you supposed to bring back to the team?

Yeah, and I think, you know, the word, if people are confused, I think early on I looked up and I was like, why do people call these congresses? And I think the congress thing comes up from like, comes from maybe ex-US, like international type definition. So they kind of stick with congress and it's like very, very large conferences, maybe with like tens of thousands of people is what they call a congress. So if that helps with the definition, but yeah,

Really, you're going to have your local, regional, and national and international congresses or conferences. And you'll kind of pick and choose what you want to go to in your territory, which is great. So sometimes you'll only get access to

to your OLs or opinion leaders at the conferences or congresses. So you might not be able to see them while they're at clinics. So that's why these congresses are a really great opportunity to see them. They're more willing to meet because they have more time while they're there. But the goal really is, you know, for me to see my OLs, but sometimes I'll need to see others'

my teammates, OLs as well, to gather insights. And insights are really actionable items that we can bring back to the company to just say, hey, this is where we see the OLs think we need to go next, right? So where do we need to go next? Do the OLs like this data? What do they need? Basically, our goal is to dig deeper and deeper to figure out

okay, where should we go in this therapeutic area or what else do we need to give to the providers to help them make these clinical decisions? So it could be exact encounters at Congresses. So you meet with leadership and the OLs or you could just meet them in the hallway for five minutes or you could take them to dinner.

And sometimes we host presentations at the conferences as well. That gives you an opportunity to interact with them at your specific presentations. But you'll be there as medical and then sometimes commercial side will be there also. So just navigating that piece as well.

Yes, definitely. And one of the things I wanted to ask is, you know, as you were acclimating to be to being an MSL for the first time, what are some of the things that you've learned along the way in terms of like having a productive KOL engagement or conversation? Yeah, I think you really just have to be you don't want to data dump. I think that's probably one of the biggest mistakes that newer MSLs will make or maybe, you know,

I think it's just you're there to do your best not to data dump. I always try to lead with a little bit of curiosity. I try to make sure I understand what matters most to the audience that I'm talking to before diving too deep into the science. Because sometimes you're not really lecturing them. Honestly, I try to get them to talk more than me so that I can bring back those actionable insights. So I'll get...

an OOL who might challenge me on the data. So really in that situation, you really have to tailor to not being too focused on delivering that information.

get your listening ears on, dig deeper, understand the concerns, and then share the data that you know to kind of give them more support to address their concerns. But yeah, that's kind of how I approach a successful OL interaction, just tailoring it to the specific audience. Everybody has a different personality, so you have to learn a lot about emotional intelligence.

Yes, definitely. I feel like the more kind of personal slash professional development, you know, podcasts or books or anything that I've been diving into the past few months, or I'll say the past like year even, so many successful leaders talk about how like,

oftentimes some of the best conversations and most productive things that they've had happen to them or that they were a part of in their career, they were not the ones doing the most of the talking. They actually, they were in the room, they were maybe like propelling the conversation forward with good questions, but they were actually not the one doing the majority of the talking. So that really resonates. And I feel like that's something that I've

I like continuing to hear and I'm trying to also incorporate into my OL interactions. Okay, great. Well, we have some questions actually in the chat. So one of our attendees asked,

So I want to ask a very realistic question. As an aspiring MSL, how can we better position ourselves when we are up against internal candidates? Ooh, good question. Do you have any suggestions on something that we can do within our control?

Yeah, right. So this takes me back to baseball actually. So there's only two things that you control. You can control, right? So attitude and effort. You can use it anywhere, not just baseball, obviously. But attitude, effort. For me, I think my strategy is always to be overprepared. So if you're overprepared, I mean, you're mostly, you're prepared for mostly everything. You think about all the questions they might ask you, even the obscure ones.

You're also going to feel more confident. Your anxiety is going to go down. So, you know, honestly, I truly believe you can create your own success. Like people like make their own luck, right? People are like, oh, you're so lucky, but you create your own luck by taking, you know, these small steps, small goals every day, um,

And, you know, those little steps add up to something big. And it really reminds me of a book that my boss just gave me. It's called 212 Degrees. I don't know if anybody's read that book. I've heard of it. It's not really like a book book, but it is the last book I read. Very short book, lots of pictures outside of children's books. But it's a motivational book that illustrates, you know, how one extra degree of effort, like, you know, water boiling at 212 degrees,

versus just being really hot at 211 degrees. That can be the difference between good and great. And that could be the difference in you getting your very first role. So really just kind of diving deep, keep doing these informational interviews and the office hours, learning more about it so that you're over-prepared for each interview that you have.

Yeah, what I would add to that is, you know, if they've already slated someone internally for the role, then that's you shouldn't view that, in my opinion, as a loss, because they've already kind of decided that they were going to go with that person. So it's not that you were beat out by that internal person. They've already selected the person.

right? It's more of, okay, so if they've already selected someone for that internal position, there are other positions out there. And there are so many companies consistently recruiting for new MSLs and not even just thinking about the massive companies out there, the Fortune, you know, 500 companies, thinking about also, and I think a lot of people don't

consider this for maybe one of their first MSL roles or the first role to like break into the industry is what about small to medium sized biotech companies? Because

there could be really great opportunities there. And, you know, you might not have the initial like BMS or insert, you know, large name company here for your first role. However, that is something to consider when you're searching for roles, especially if you have a specific therapeutic area of expertise. Like if you are, let's say, a pharmacist who did a residency in oncology or you're in the community pharmacy and you see so many patients on diabetes medications.

and you want to tailor your resume and application materials to diabetes positions or endocrinology based or metabolic specific positions. So I wouldn't count yourself out just because they're choosing someone internal over you. I wouldn't view it as like a you versus them kind of dynamic. There are so many positions out there and it's,

a numbers game at the end of the day because you might be so qualified. I think the average person who applies to an MSL job is quite qualified. It just needs to be the right kind of pieces of the puzzle that all come together at the same time. So you might lose out on one role, but if you apply to enough roles, it will end up happening for you with the right resume and cover letter.

Okay, amazing. So we have another question in the chat. Thank you to everyone who's putting questions in the chat. If you're listening and you have a question as well, please feel free to add it to our list here. Okay, so the next one is, what has been the most challenging part of your MSL role and how did you overcome it? Well, let me think.

I think the most challenging is probably the beginning, right? So the biggest adjustment in the first like three to six months, right? It's you're no longer a clinician. You're no longer like that internal scientific expert that sees your colleagues every day, like, or your OLs, right? Every day. So now you have to be that external strategic communicator. So, yeah.

You're learning to tailor complex data to lots of different stakeholders with lots of different personalities. And you only get to see them really, you know, you're probably seeing them four times a year versus every day if you're working. You're not working every day in the clinic with them. Right. So you're trying to build that strong relationship with so many segregated people.

appointments and maybe they're five minutes long, 10 minutes long, 15 minutes long. So, you know, how can you do that? How can you build the relationship, share the data, not be promotional,

not give your personal recommendations. That's different than what you're used to, right? So those are definitely new strengths that I had to learn. I think the compliance, sometimes you'll hear this a lot, I think, from everybody. Compliance is a big thing. Industry terminology is another big thing to take in at first.

But I think those things just kind of come and some of those things change too. There's going to be new compliance rules, new acronyms all the time. But I think if you can get a little bit of background in that first before even getting into industry, I think that'll be a good place to start or you put yourself in a good place. And AI honestly can give you

a lot of summaries on those topics and they'll be able to, you can even ask AI to explain it at an eighth grade level if you need to, right? From the very start. But do you know what OPDP is? You know what the Sunshine Act is? Are you familiar with Omni channels? Those sorts of things. So keep digging deeper.

I was actually going to ask about your perspective on AI. So I'm glad you brought that up on strategies on how to use AI to your advantage, especially as it pertains to breaking into the industry. I think that the terminology is so key. And your resume might be perfectly tailored for a clinical pharmacy job or for a clinical researcher job because that's what you've done before.

But if you're trying to break into industry, using the correct terminology is so important. And I think before that was a little more hard to come by simply because maybe you need to do more informational interviews, actually engage with people in the industry. I feel like now you can utilize perhaps some YouTube videos paired with AI and you can actually learn a lot of this terminology.

The next step after learning it, or rather at least being familiar with it, in my opinion, is you really need to incorporate that terminology into your resume and cover letter when you're sending it off to applications. Because unfortunately, fortunately, however we want to look at it,

The first step, even before you speak to someone in HR, is going to be some sort of algorithm that's going to be looking for certain keywords that align with the job description. And so as you're sending off every single resume and cover letter, just make sure to tweak it just a little bit to match the job description and make sure that

you know, if you're writing that you collaborated on an interdisciplinary team in, you know, the clinic or something that you actually incorporate perhaps the term cross-functional collaboration, right? Because that might be one of the keywords that they're searching for. Or even just putting in KOLs instead of HCPs if you're in a community pharmacy and you're, you know, calling healthcare providers all the time, like,

In that way, you are using your scientific expertise as a pharmacist and engaging with these KOLs, right? So it's like you're doing a similar version of something you do as an MSL, but it's about reframing it to match the job description and the algorithm that you're first going to hit before you reach HR or a hiring manager or anything else later in the process. Okay, amazing. So let's go to the next question in the chat. So

Next question is being an MSL on rare disease states. Does I think they want to ask, like, is there a difference available in data and resources for rare diseases? And how do they affect your day to day responsibilities? Wow. I don't think I'm summarizing this question really well. I don't know. Can you see it? I can see it. I can see it. So, yeah, I think rare disease is different. Right. So, yeah.

Even though I'm in rare disease, I still reach some of the same providers. So there aren't necessarily providers in rare disease. We just want to make sure that the providers are aware that this disease exists. And that's mainly...

that's more for the community providers, possibly maybe more in the Midwest where I am, where there's a lot of small towns, they might not get access to, you know, all the great conferences that come to the big cities. Right. So I think there's two pieces to where I'm educating and that education is a little different. So if I'm educating the communities or pharmacists,

you know, it is really just basic disease state. Like, have you seen this? Have you learned about this? Right. If you're a pharmacist, you know, I don't think we ever learned about incavasculitis in school. Maybe we learned about PNH. Maybe we learned about AHUS a little bit, but again, just reminding them that these exist, what to look for. And then my other O.L.,

interactions with academic institutions or the top researchers they're going to know what these rare diseases are and they're going to be they're not going to be experts but i think in rare disease i have the opportunity to educate them on you know additional information that they may not know just because it is so rare it's not their biggest focus so i think that's where i can come in and be a resource to them and it is really great when they're you know i'll give them a

a little sneak peek of the information or I'll go over some information. I don't data dump, but really the biggest piece is they know who I am when that patient comes that has that rare disease. Like, okay, I know I need to call Pamela or text Pamela. Usually that's how my interactions happen, right? I have this patient. I think I would start them in this. Let's walk through this. Give me a little bit more of the new data that you have out there.

With that, again, in rare disease, you definitely don't want to data dump because it's just not going to be every day. But I'm still seeing, you know, the like the rheumatologist, pulmonologist, nephrologist that would see all the normal patients.

conditions as well. So you're competing against everyone else that's seeing them too. So I think, but the difference, I love rare disease. You might get some different opinions about rare disease. I think

Some, you know, maybe some rheumatologists would be like, oh, I don't really actually see angiovasculitis. So I don't need to talk to you about that. So that might happen too. But it's, I think rare disease is up and coming now. So it hasn't been too difficult for me. Usually in your territory too. Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense. What about the part of the question? So they're asking to talk about your ability to interact with KOLs or OLs in your case or healthcare providers when the data may not be as strong or robust as a more common disease state. Super interesting.

Yeah, it'll depend on the study. So I think if they say, okay, there's only, you know, 300 people in this study versus, you know, in a diabetes study, there's going to be 10,000, but you really just have to remind them that this is rare disease. This is actually, you know, this is a good number for rare disease. And I think the new thing that's coming out in industry is a lot more real world evidence. So these, you know, looking at real world patients, case studies, you

to support some of that additional data in rare disease. So I think, I don't see it as a challenge at all in the rare disease sector.

Okay, great. So the next question, MSLs often describe their scientific role as being CEO of their territory. Oh my gosh, that's what you said earlier. I don't know if this person was there when you said that, but that's the same wavelength. Could you please share your tailored approach to being the CEO of your territory and how this translates to meeting or exceeding standardized or qualitative metrics in your role? I'm glad they're asking that because I also was going to ask about that.

So this actually goes along with something I wanted to ask.

Yeah, and the metrics are tough. It's talked about a lot. You know, as an MSL, you're typically measured on the number of scientific engagements you have, how many insights you collect, and, you know, how much are you in your territory, right? So I'll track the numbers. I'll track my progress weekly using our platform. But honestly, you know, I'm thankful to have leaders that really focus on the quality of

of interaction. So, you know, again, you want to meet the goal, right? So being the CEO of your territory really means like you, you, you start, and I think this is a strength that you can build. So if you don't already travel now and you get a larger territory, you're,

right? Do you know, like, all the biggest institutions, you know, all the community institutions, and how you would lay those out and travel to them to, you know, really maximize your time in those areas, right? You don't want to go to, like, from my territory, right? I wouldn't want to go to Omaha one day, come back home, and then go back to, like, Sioux Falls, right? They're right, they're pretty close together. So trying to arrange those

appointments together if possible, but really being the CEO of your territory, I mean, you can plan around, you know, family events if you need to. And, you know, you get to choose which regional or local Congresses are the most beneficial for you to go to. And I think they really trust the MSL to say, hey, I don't think I need to go to this next year. Or if someone else takes over your territory, you know, or I think, you know,

we need to send two MSLs to this Congress next time, right? So that's really what it means. They really trust you to know the territory and who we need to send every year and do we need to send anybody to that next year once you kind of map that territory out.

So it sounds like in short is like being really organized and strategic with how you're going to spend your time. And I think some of that just comes from experience and understanding like who are the key opinion leaders in your territory, who and how often should I be seeing them? What sort of insights am I going to bring back and really trying to capitalize on quality?

Absolutely. Okay, amazing. What's a common misconception about the MSL role that can potentially limit collaboration with OLs? Let's see. Misconception. I think sometimes people do think that they're not sure the difference between an MSL and a sales rep.

If they haven't worked with them in the past, honestly, I think the biggest issue is just there's so many MSLs, so many sales reps, so many, you know, thought leader liaisons and other members of medical affairs and commercial and marketing team that are trying to reach out to these individual OLs and they just don't.

what limits the collaboration is just their limited time, right? They can't meet with all of us. So, you know, really what we try to do is try to bring everybody together, you know, all the MSLs that would reach, you know, the rheumatologists or all the MSLs that would reach the nephrologists. We try to do all those meetings as like, you know, a, like it's the, you know, one Amgen type mentality where we try to do it together to save those stakeholders, you

their time, right? It's not really about our visits. Like they don't have to be long either. You know, I think some people think they have to be an hour long, but honestly the best, sometimes the most valuable insights can come from a 15 minute conversation. And those take time to build too, right? You might not get that right away.

So I think MSLs, you know, it's more MSLs have to be a little bit patient with the OLs as you try to build that relationship. If you can imagine all the additional people that are trying to reach out to them. So if they give you time, it should be valued. Yeah, completely agree.

All right, next great. These questions are amazing. So keep them coming. Like every single one is good. So, so good. Okay. So the next one is what does career growth usually look like for MSLs? Do most people stick with the same area? So I think they mean like therapeutic area or, you know, do they move into leadership or do they try something different like medical affairs or clinical roles?

Yeah, I think this depends on the person. It depends where you want to be. Some people, you know, right now for me, I'm at the point where I really love being an MSL and I think my next step up is senior MSL and then maybe like principal MSL or something like that. But doing similar roles or the same role, I like being in the field. You know, I manage people previously. I don't know if I really want to go back into people management.

I think I see a lot of leadership in a lot of Zoom meetings or a lot of Teams meetings and they still go out in the field too. So I'd have to take a look at that after a while. I'm just getting started. So probably just stay as MSL for this. I think staying in the same area makes it a lot easier.

Because if I already know the providers in these specific therapeutic areas, then you already have those connections. But if you switch areas, that's totally fine. You just have to start building those relationships again. And maybe you have those relationships from previous too, right? So it's just a little bit harder.

to start over. But again, I know some people that will be MSLs that have been MSLs this whole time didn't want to move up because they just love the flexibility of this role and just having a little bit of field time versus all remote work as you move up internally.

I've done the in-house leadership thing and I got really burnt out with the number of Zoom calls that I felt like, you know, not calling out anyone specifically, but gosh, there was so many calls and my colleagues were awesome, but it was like, we weren't getting anywhere. It was just like, you had to have these certain calls at these certain times and it was just...

kind of felt silly after a while. So I, I, I too agree. It's kind of like dependent on what you like, but I also have colleagues who absolutely love that and thrive off of it. So as you know, Pamela said, it's about finding what really suits you and your lifestyle and what you like and

And I also have colleagues who have, you know, they started off in one therapeutic area and they were like, Ooh, I want the challenge of learning about another one. Like, I actually don't know anything about, you know, for one of my friends, it's like, I actually don't know anything about dermatology. I would love to, she had done a bunch in cardiomyopathy.

metabolic health and was like, I want to do something else. And she challenged herself and now she's in a new, you know, therapeutic area. So that's definitely possible if your first MSL role is maybe not your like dream therapeutic area, or you try it for a while. And you're like, Yep, I'm ready for something new. You can always transition and do something else. Alright, so next question. So what are your thoughts? Closing the interview like in commercial side interviews?

Or is it too aggressive or off-putting? Oh, I'm not exactly sure what that means. - I don't know if I know what that means either. - Maybe we can interpret the question as like, what are your thoughts for closing the interview? 'Cause that's actually very interesting. Like any suggestions you might have about like how many questions you should ask, like what you should do for follow-up, like how would you approach that?

Yeah, I think for closing interviews, honestly, you want to have not too many questions. I think a good amount of questions is maybe two to three at the end. You can also use AI to help you figure out some good questions for you to ask if you're not sure what those are. Right. But again, to

With any informational interview or job interview, I would say we talked about this on our last call, but don't forget to send your thank yous and try to get the contact information for each person you spoke to and send thank yous. I think they can go a long way.

Yes, I would agree. I can name on maybe one or two hands, and I probably said this the last time, of how few thank yous that I've received after being on like the hiring side and hiring someone, how few I've gotten from candidates. So you would be surprised how much and how far that those go when you're deciding between two really, really great candidates and one person has sent a thank you note and the other one hasn't. So...

Okay, yeah, love that point. Ooh, someone says go Hawks. I'm genuinely not sure what that means, but I feel like it might mean something to you. So speaking of challenges and overcoming them, how have you navigated tough conversations with OLs and bounced back from them if you've had them?

Additionally, how do you measure impact or success of your interactions? Is that through like actionable insights you pull from them or something else entirely? Awesome. Yes. Hawkeyes. We're Iowa Hawkeyes. So Rachel. Oh, no. Okay.

Not cyclones, sorry for those cyclones out there if you're on there, but yeah, you're always, I mean, I think when you get someone that pushes back or if you get an OL meeting that doesn't go as planned, those are the meetings that you really wanna be in, right? 'Cause that's why you're there, that's why you're at MSL, right? So if they're challenging you, again, try to tailor that conversation to their concerns versus data dumping, but really for success,

In my opinion, I think that means that they're seeing me as that reliable scientific partner. And I'm that scientific partner externally and internally. So, you know, my OLS are proactively reaching out to me when they get a patient or, you know, I'm influencing the specific strategy with my real world insights when I go online.

see providers, you know, we actually put action to something that I brought back, which is very exciting, you know,

success is really, you know, I'm adding that value beyond just seeing or just reaching, you know, the number of interactions. And, you know, if my cross therapeutic area, so like the other disease states or functional partners, like commercial marketing, payer side of things, if they're calling on me for best practices, you know, that's a sign that

I'm not just executing my role, but helping elevate the team, the company as a whole. So I think that's how I measure success in my opinion. And building that trust in collaboration with OLs, it's not easy. So I think when you get that, it's really something to celebrate.

Absolutely. So with the rise of AI and advanced analytics, how are you incorporating these tools into territory planning, KOL segmentation or scientific engagement strategy? Okay, great. These people are like reading my mind because I was going to ask exactly how you're using AI in your day to day as an MSL. It's perfect.

Yeah, honestly, I use AI every day. I think one that I want to bring up is open evidence. And those of you that are students, you won't have access to this yet. But anyone with an NPI can get access to open evidence. And I think it really brings together everything that's in like PubMed, clinicaltrials.gov.

And it gives you all the like, you know, new studies and you can really ask like, hey, what's out there? What's new out there in this new disease state? Or what's the competitive intelligence, right, around this therapeutic area? And what's the real world evidence that's surrounding this right now? Or what would be the biggest pushback?

that you would get from this specific journal article or this specific drug or something like that. So really just asking very specific questions to AI. Keep asking questions if you don't get the answer that you want. But honestly, I use AI all the time to tell me about, give me a summary about this specific provider or this specific OL and the research that they've done for AI.

You can also ask PubMed to do that too, to look at the recent articles that this OL has published.

participated in recently too so you can ask you for like is it better to where should i fly into for this you know city out in nebraska or something like that you're not sure honestly anything so i think it definitely start using a high more if you're not it it makes your life a lot easier and more efficient in my opinion definitely all right great

Let's see. Oh, so the person who was asking about the closing, the interview, gave some more clarification. So they're asking more or less, you know, asking for the job at the end. Like, I'm interpreting that as like, how to make it completely, you know, evident and apparent that like, this is your top choice, and you really want the job. Like, how do you make that clear?

I think you just tell them, honestly. I think you just tell them. And I think you can, but you can make it more, you can say it, but you have to say it in all, basically all of your answers to their interview questions. They have to see the passion in the therapeutic area. They have to see the passion for patients. They have to see that you know the territory, right? Like you want the job, but the bigger thing you really need to do is to show them that you're going to be

prepared for the job as well. So I think, yeah, you can definitely tell them it's your top choice, but you also have to show them with some of those outcomes related things in your CV and interview answers. Definitely. And, you know, thinking about your role now, Pamela, how do you define success as an MSL?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think it's, you know, everybody's seeing me as that, you know, scientific partner internally, externally. You know, like I mentioned previously, if they're calling me or they're texting me, I feel like they're pretty comfortable with me or they trust my knowledge and expertise. So I think that's how I define the success. It's not really on the metrics.

metrics that they put out. Although, you know, type A pharmacists, we really want to meet the metrics. So I meet the metrics, you know, every month. But it really is more like the relationships that I'm building, which is really like, which is really why I like the MSL role. And I want to stay in the field because, you know, I don't really want to give up these relationships because I like, you know, I like seeing them every quarter.

Absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned EQ earlier, emotional intelligence, like the importance of, you know, when you're engaging with a KOL or an OL, it's just as important to, you know, talk about the science as it is to ask about, you know, their dog's recent, you know, surgery or their kid's recent baseball game. So it's all about building the relationship at the end of the day.

- Yep, absolutely. - Great, any other questions that we can answer for everyone who's here tuning in live? Let me just check and see if we have any other questions here. Oh, so how do you stay up to date on everything in your therapeutic area while balancing your work responsibilities? So open evidence or the AI tool that you mentioned, is there anything else or like newsletters perhaps that help you stay up to date?

Yeah, I think, you know, blocking time on your schedule, too, is pretty good. Like on Mondays and Fridays, typically I try to block at least one hour for me to be like, just put it on my calendar, block it off so that I can review some of the literature alerts that we've gotten to make sure that I'm up to date. But honestly, I search for the therapeutic area on YouTube.

and we're the drug and I'll just save those and I'll listen to those on my drives. That is such a cool suggestion. I've never heard anyone say that before. I'm going to start doing that. That's a great idea. Wow.

Because then it's just, I mean, sometimes I'm doing the phone calls on my drives too, but if I don't have phone calls scheduled, then I try to double it up with that. So then it's not, you know, extra time that I'm spending trying to keep up with all the information. But yeah, if I'm driving, then might as well listen to a podcast. And it's a good way to see how other, usually they're OLs as well, doing the podcast. So

it's a good way to see how they talk about things. And maybe you might learn some insights, honestly, from the podcast. Well, and also if you, you know, have team members across like across the country, like if you're in Iowa, but they're actually in South Carolina, then you can say like, oh, I listened to this great podcast and actually send it over to your colleagues. So you're kind of thinking about it from a teamwork perspective too. And maybe that person in South Carolina can actually engage with them at the university.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And PubMed has alerts too. So I know there's like email overload, but if there's specific things you want alerts on when you become an MSL, like you can do that with PubMed, but usually your drug, your company will send you the alerts on your specific therapeutic area. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

all right so next question what's your best advice for building a mean meaningful relationship with a kol who's hard to engage with either because they're unresponsive they're already having you know they already have like other strong industry ties or they just seem indifferent to the engagement like in general so what are your tricks and strategies

Yeah, and I would say, you know, don't make an assumption that they don't want to talk to you either. They're just all really busy, right? Likely not busy at all, yeah. They just...

I mean, I just want to reiterate, it really is a marathon. It's not a sprint at all. You're going to have to see them a couple of times. And just remember, you know, how many other people are trying to reach out to them, right? Like how many other people are reaching out to them from my company? And then how many other people are reaching out to them from the organization?

many other companies that are around, right? So I think it just takes time. I started to see all my work, all my emails, all my little chats with them, kind of, it all came together maybe eight to 12 months, depending on, you know, how often I saw them. But again, now, you know, now being a year and a half into Amgen,

I think it's just going to keep getting better because you're going to see them more, they're going to recognize you.

And it's just hard to remember and talk to everybody that wants to talk to them. So if you make the relationship fun or remember something fun about them, if you can get to that point, or if you see some pictures in their room, like with baseball or sports teams or something, if you go to their office, you know, trying to remember some of those things, if they mention. And then be like, okay, this person actually cares. They're not just trying to get that interaction done.

And yeah, they truly want to hear what I want to say. Exactly. It's all about having the KOL or the OL feel special because at the end of the day, everyone just wants to feel special, right? So how can you facilitate them feeling special? Okay, great. Oh, this is...

This is the second question that's come in talking about territory mapping. So everyone's super interested in that. So could you please describe the territory mapping process in rare diseases? Does that involve multiple specialties? And how do you prioritize the OL list? Cool. So territory mapping is probably one of the hardest things going into an MSL role if you haven't already managed a territory in the past, right?

Typically,

the company will give you an OL list. So that's how you can prioritize your OL list, right? So after you get through your priority OL list, then you can kind of decide who you need to see outside of that. But honestly, it's really who in rare disease, it's this, who's going to prescribe it, right? And it's not that we're looking at prescription numbers, but, you know, who is going to make the decision to prescribe the medication? That's who we need to educate, right? On making their clinical decisions, right?

to use this in their patients or to not use it in their patients. Right. So right now I have three specialties that I'm covering. Honestly, one major one. And then, you know, I'm covering a biosimilar as well, reactively. And biosimilars, you know, usually insurance decides what biosimilar people are going to use. So there's not a lot behind that. It's only, you know, mostly reactive questions on biosimilars. So most of our rare disease patients,

MSLs cover one disease at this point. But there are companies that have whole portfolios as well where you're going to cover more than one thing. But for territory mapping, again, you just have to know the territory. Are you going to fly there? Are you going to drive there? Do you need to take a connection? Is it a direct flight? Do I need to stay overnight?

Right. Do I have meetings? Can I plan or really like, can I plan a breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same time to maximize this? Or can I just plan meetings? You don't have to have meals with them, of course. And

That's another thing too, knowing the Sunshine Act and all that, there's certain states, especially Minnesota in my territory, those providers have very restricted meal allowances. We really do no meals for any providers in Minnesota. Sometimes they're aware of that. We honestly do a lot of virtual meals.

To if something's going to take me like eight hours to get to drive or it's a connection flight that takes all day, is it possible that this OOL will meet with me virtually? You know, those types of things. So you have to kind of be good at business, too. You don't want to cost the company a ton of money while you're running around in your territory, right? So they're definitely going to look at that.

So those are some things to think about. That was kind of all over the place, but. - No, that's great. Yeah. I mean, it's all like a balancing act of trying to figure out how to best utilize the department resources while getting the best insights you can. And for certain OLs or certain insights, it's totally worth spending the extra money and maybe for others it's not. And that's something that you'll learn as you go along. Yeah. - Yeah.

And then, yeah, the other part is if I'm not going to see them then or if I'm going to see them at the conference, do I need to fly out there to see them now as well? So it just depends on the timing and how often you want to see them.

Amazing. Another person reading my mind on the next question I was going to ask you. So what mindset shift do you think is most essential for someone transitioning from their current role, whether it's in clinical or academia, into the MSL role?

I think the mindset shift is, again, you're like you were all going to be scientific experts. Typically, you're an internal scientific expert. Right. But now it's more it's going to be external typically now. Right. External with O.L.'s. You're not going to see them as often. Right.

So building that relationship is harder. So you're more of a, and you're not giving your own personal recommendations. You're sharing the data. So it's more like of a strategy role. You're a strategic communicator. I think that's the biggest, that's the big shift. And yeah,

you know, I think the other shift is really thinking, you know, nothing is really a fire drill in industry typically, but sometimes that happens in clinical practice. There's a lot of fire drills, but that's what, that's a good shift. I think that nothing is really a fire drill in industry. Sometimes there will be. So I don't want to say never, never say never for anything, but typically it's not as urgent. But yeah,

It's more like within 24 hours versus within the next 30 minutes or something. Right. Exactly. And, you know, what is one of the most, you know, maybe one or two most rewarding things that you've experienced so far in your, you know, tenure of being an MSL?

I think the most rewarding thing is really just being able to work with colleagues in different therapeutic areas. It really is, you don't realize how difficult it is. Like even for me to manage this one specific therapeutic area, it's so much information.

So then when we can collaborate to work together and bring maybe four MSLs to one meeting and provide this OL with information on this, this, this, and this, and we can do it clearly and concisely and they appreciate that we tried to collaborate together to do that to save their time. I think just a lot of the thank yous and they're just like, "Oh, I didn't know that."

So I think that just, it resonates. Sometimes you don't know if you're making an impact, but they'll tell you the patient stories too that come in or they'll be like, this patient, thank you so much for this information. I don't even know if this patient would be alive without this. Those types of stories are amazing. But honestly, just to have my colleagues ask me for some best practices too, just to be

Just shifting to a new thing, you know, you don't know if you're going to be good at it or not. But I think I'm starting to feel like, okay, people are asking me things. So I feel like they trust me, which is great. So it's been really rewarding to shift and be recognized as that, you know, trusted scientific partner internally and externally.

Amazing. All right. So we have a few remaining moments here. I think we have time for like one more question if someone wants to put something in the chat quickly, but excuse me, just wanted to thank you so much for your insights and for your time, Pamela. It was incredible to have you on again. If people are interested in checking out

Our previous session, we have our previous one that's on YouTube. So if you just go to The MSL Academy's YouTube page, you can not only check out, you know, the previous conversation that we had with Pamela, but also other experts and MSLs that we've had on. We've also translated a lot of these conversations into a podcast called The MSL Insider. So if you're on the go and you don't want to have your YouTube app open, then we have this information link.

also in audio format. And you can access that through Spotify. So you can check that out there. If you want more resources, we at The MSL Academy so we have services and programs. But if you're looking for free stuff, we have our blog, which has a bunch of really great written information. It's either written by myself or one of the other MSL coaches that we have on staff. And

So, yeah, feel free to stay in touch with either of us. If you haven't added us on LinkedIn yet, definitely do that because we're always posting and always trying to share insights because we know how complex it is to break into the industry.

Also, I just realized how dark my light is looking over here. So it kind of looks like I'm floating in the darkness, which I kind of am not gonna lie, because I was relying on the the natural light and the natural light is kind of gone. So that might have been a funny transition, but

Anyways, thank you to everyone who came live. This was an awesome session. Really great questions. If you're looking to break into the industry, I feel like just judging based off the questions, you all are really headed in the right direction because these were amazing. Well, yeah, we'll have the recording on YouTube for those asking. We'll have the recording up on YouTube and on the MSL Academy's website. So you can check it out there as well as a bunch of other discussions that we had with other people.

All right. Any final words? For me, I would just say, you know, I think the biggest thing is really just to be overprepared. So every day, try to do something little, you know, have an informational interview, listen to a 15-minute podcast or half of a podcast, right? All those little things will add up. So I think everyone is prepared to get there and you will eventually. So just keep reaching out if you have more specific questions.

Definitely. Alrighty. Well, until next time, we have another office hours coming up in four weeks. So we'll have another one coming up and yeah, do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions for either of us. Alrighty. Until next time. Thank you. Have a good night, everyone. Thanks everyone. Thanks Swathi.