A pharmaceutical physician is a medically-qualified doctor and is concerned with assuring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of illness, injury and mental and physical impairments. A physician typically leads the medical team for the development of a particular product or group of products within a therapy area. Patient-facing within a national health service, they co-ordinate the patient’s medical treatment from beginning to end, analysing the patient’s symptoms and conditions, and managing their care for the best results and recovery. Physicians working within a Pharmaceutical company, on the other hand, are not typically patient-facing and fall into three main categories: clinical research physicians, pharmacovigilance physicians and medical affairs physicians.
A clinical research physician typically is involved in phases 1 to 3 of clinical trials , supervising the care of patient volunteers, designing and writing clinical trial protocols and providing medical advice to internal and external scientific groups. A pharmacovigilance physician is involved in collecting, monitoring and evaluating information on suspected adverse patient reactions, gathering information from preclinical through all phases of clinical trials to post marketing surveillance studies, and putting together the summary of product characteristics (SmPC) packaged with medicines. A medical affairs physician has an interest in marketing (Phase IV of clinical trials and onwards) and will provide medical input into marketing strategy, supporting sales staff, providing medical information to doctors and reviewing the wording of drug advertising.
Requirements vary based on the type of medicine or therapy area the candidate would like to practice. However, all doctors must at least complete an undergraduate scientific degree from a university, plus four additional years of study at an accredited medical school to obtain a medical doctorate degree (M.D.).
A physician is part investigator, part counsellor, and part scientist. Doctors must have a very strong grasp of chemistry, biology and mathematics, and must be able to analyse information and solve problems. Additionally, most physicians should exhibit excellent interpersonal skills in order to communicate effectively with internal colleagues as well as with patients and their families. The role usually involves lots of travel and work internationally, and offers an excellent salary and benefits package, as well as a defined career path. Promotion to senior physician usually takes two-to-three years, while promotion to Medical Manager or Head of Business Until requires at least 5 years, usually within a specialist therapy area.
Not all physician vacancies are advertised and due to a general shortage of qualified candidates, hiring managers are usually open to targeted speculative applications.
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