Up until the end of university, I had not given much thought to my future career. I knew I wanted to go travelling once I had graduated with my degree in animal behaviour and welfare, and I worked in a couple of temporary positions to save up for my trip abroad. Aside from that, I have always had a keen interest in science and healthcare and wanted to find a career that aligned with my core values and desire to help make a difference.
When I started my job search, I did not know much about MedComms, if anything at all. It was one of those terms I had heard once or twice before when speaking to someone new about what they did for a living and I would still be none the wiser having heard their response. My first introduction to the industry was through my role as client services executive at a medical journal. This gave me my first taste of what it is like to work with pharmaceutical companies across a variety of different therapeutic areas. It also introduced me to the fast-paced world of project management, in which every day is different to the one you think you had planned. It is important to be able to manage the client’s expectations while being able to adhere to often very tight timelines, and I realized that this was something that really complemented my organization skills and ability to work efficiently. The journal itself was new and just getting itself off the ground, so I was fortunate enough to reap the benefits of working for a young and fast-growing company; namely, learning how to adapt to new processes within a short timeframe and picking up the skills to offer support within other departments.
I moved to Oxford PharmaGenesis looking for a little more structure, but by no means did that mean a lack of variety. I am now a project coordinator supporting three different accounts. For each one my role is different depending on the account’s needs. Since joining, my knowledge on budgets and reconciling projects has grown exponentially. Of course, a large element of my job remains keeping track of deadlines and ensuring projects are delivered on time to a high standard. Through doing so, I have gained a wealth of experience on a wide range of deliverables, from abstracts and case studies on the publications side, to advisory board meetings, masterclasses and symposia on the events side. No two advisory boards are the same either, which keeps you on your toes. Not least, I attended a business trip to Charlotte in North Carolina to provide support at an extremely insightful consensus meeting within just 4 months of joining the company.
One of the things I most appreciate about working in MedComms, and at Oxford PharmaGenesis in particular, is the strong essence of teamwork. There is a real collaborative and dedicated effort across the whole company, not just within the individual accounts. This effort does not go unnoticed either and receiving positive feedback from clients is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job.
