On leaving the bench..
Painting by Georgiana Talpa
I am a scientist, get me out of here! I am an ambitious person. I have always had a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve and how I would achieve it. This always starts with a plan that takes into account what I need to do , and the resources I have to do it. After that, it is only a matter of hard work and discipline. At least that is what I believed until I started working in scientific research. After ten years of training and working as a molecular and cellular biologist in cancer research, I decided to stop and move to pastures new. Why? Because science is unpredictable. You can work impossible hours and still not get the golden positive result that will end up in an exciting publication and move your career forward. Or even worse, you can work towards a new exciting story only to be halted by an over-demanding reviewer, or scooped by another scientist. Failure to publish is a death sentence in the scientific world, and yet can be the result of multiple factors that one cannot always control. The second reason that pushed me away from the bench is our tendency to focus on a very specific molecule, or a particular pathway. For every researcher , the world (or at least the cell) revolves around their favourite gene or molecule. Although this is necessary to gain deep knowledge about various processes, I want to take a step back and look at things in a wider context. I did not take my decision lightly. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do. I started by listing what I enjoyed doing, and what I could do well. Then I began to explore possible careers.
I looked at numerous career websites, company
pages , job adverts and many many blogs. I took every opportunity I had to sample a different career. I volunteered as a speaker and as a translator, I took one day workshops in regulatory affairs and in clinical trial coordination , and attended biotech events. In the end I decided to focus on a career in Science Policy (SP) and set up a learning programme towards my new goal. My programme changed with time as I learned new things and found new courses that I could change. It was a lot of fun seeing science from other perspectives. I attended an EC conference on innovation in healthcare which included discussions from the scientific angle but also from an economic and decision-making perspective. I enjoyed the conference so much that I signed up for another one that focused on personalised medicine. Those conferences were really worth the trip to
Brussels, not only because of the things I learned and the people I met, but also because I realised that my interests are firmly rooted in Healthcare. I also became aware of a very big gap in my learning programme.
I forgot about the
PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY!!!!!!! how silly was that? I had become so focused on science policy with all the sociology and ethics it involved that I forgot about Pharma!!! I had to do something about that immediately , if not sooner! Finally, I realised career in SP does not have a clear structure. You learn on the job and you can take various jobs during your career. I worried that I might get lost in the largeness of it all. This is not what I want! I want a very focused and clear career path, right from the start ! So I kept on learning and decided to open my eyes to other careers that would (1) still expose me to new medical discoveries, (2) that would have an impact on
healthcare, (3) it would ideally have an element of
economics and strategic thinking, and (4) involve interacting with various people. But the first thing I did was to take three online courses on the pharmaceutical industry, and followed that with summer school in Utrecht where I learned about pharmaceutical policy and pharmaco-economics. The rest is still cooking!
To be continued...