Pharmaceutical medicine: making the leap

I was a research registrar in the department of dermatology at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham when I made the leap into pharmaceutical medicine. For me, the main attraction was the mixture of science and business that the industry offered. But I was also beginning to feel embarrassed by the standards of NHS care, and I knew NHS research was poorly paid.

I now work as part of a team running and designing clinical trials of new drugs in healthy volunteers. I do not work for the NHS, though occasionally I work with NHS staff. I enjoy the business side of things in the industry, and unlike some NHS leavers who are troubled by the loss of contact with patients, I don't miss the clinic.

I now work in the research and development division of our company--not sales (I do not “carry the bag”). I read existing company protocols and decide how to help make clinical trials work on a day to day basis. I am trying to make them safer, faster, more accurate, and more relevant to patients. I assess ongoing trials and advise what doctors and patients might want, and, most importantly, I try to help the study team to understand how scientific findings translate to real life medicine.