PGY1 Residency or Industry Fellowship?

[doublezero]

I'm pretty certain that I want to go into industry w/ a focus on medical communications or medical affairs, so I'm wondering whether I ought to go for an industry fellowship or general residency? I've been geared towards the industry fellowship for a while, but it seems like drug companies really value clinical skills and I'm kind of scared that not doing a residency will limit my job opportunities down the line, especially given the state of the economy right now. If I were to do the residency, I would probably end up doing a second-year residency or the industry fellowship afterwards. What do you think? Thanks in advance!

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[bigpharmD]

Either one would be fine. I would personally lean towards gaining some clinical experience first. You could always do a 2nd year fellowship.

 

[MarchIoda]

The way I see it is that it's all about connections so it would have to be a top notch residency where you get to work with 'thought leaders' who can then introduce you to the pharm reps they meet with.

 

[Hels2007]

First of all, medical communications and medical affairs are very different professions in terms of daily duties. Secondly, to survive a traditional PGY1 residency is not something easy to do unless you really want to do it. And it will not prepare you for an industry position anyway, if that is your goal. Doing a residency and then an industry fellowship is also rather pointless. Pretty much, you need to choose two different paths: either you do a residency (doesn't matter, one or two year), and then work for two-five years, and leverage that clinical experience, OR you go into an industry fellowship and then climb through the ranks within pharma industry. Both have their pluses and minuses, it's up to you to decide what experiences you want to have, and what working environment you would enjoy, and what your long-term goals are.

 

[doublezero]

Thanks everyone for your responses!

Hels2007- could you comment more on the daily duties of someone in med comm vs. med affairs? Some of the fellowships I've looked at involve rotations in both departments, so I didn't realize they would be so drastically different. I've only had experience interning at a small drug company, which I understand is very different from big pharma.

My original question arose in part because we had a presentation from a fellowship program the other day where the fellows mentioned doing a residency prior to fellowship, and also spoke about how they weren't sure if they would be able to find jobs in industry immediately after completing the program due to the state of the economy.

 

[Hels2007]

Hels2007- could you comment more on the daily duties of someone in med comm vs. med affairs? Some of the fellowships I've looked at involve rotations in both departments, so I didn't realize they would be so drastically different. I've only had experience interning at a small drug company, which I understand is very different from big pharma.

I am not an expert in any way... However, as far as I know, medical communication focuses on writing (I am not sure if they write package inserts or not), responding to requests for information from healthcare professionals, and participating in review of promotional materials. Medical affairs includes MSLs; I am not quite sure what in-house medical affairs people would be doing. I guess, MSL training? I think the best place to look for that kind of information would be to look on the Rutgers website http://pharmafellows.rutgers.edu/ - it's the biggest fellowship program out there. If you are registered for the PPS, you can go and interview there, even if you decide not to apply. I spoke to some people there out of sheer interest, not like I would ever want to do global marketing, or something like that - but it was interesting to learn what it means.

My original question arose in part because we had a presentation from a fellowship program the other day where the fellows mentioned doing a residency prior to fellowship, and also spoke about how they weren't sure if they would be able to find jobs in industry immediately after completing the program due to the state of the economy.

Well, no jobs are really safe or easy to come by when economy is in recession, but I always believed that if you are good, then you will find something. I guess, there are more opportunities for someone with a residency, but if you really want to do industry, then you either need to do a fellowship or work a while (and you may like that enough that you won't want to do anything else, I have seen that happen...)