The Clinical Side: The most important part of a study
What doctors want from a clinical
Aug 1, 2005 By:
Jane Y. Chin Pharmaceutical Representative
On a short clinical call, a sales representative will have less than
two minutes of clinical dialogue with the physician. This presents a
challenging situation when a sales representative goes into a call with
a predetermined clinical message. One may assume that short clinical
calls are easier to prepare than that rare 15-minute appointment the
representative may have with a doctor. The opposite is, in fact, true:
The shorter the clinical call, the more science you need to know and
the better-trained you must be at identifying exactly what you need to
deliver and how you should deliver it.
We can begin to answer the question "What is the most important part of
a clinical study to present to a doctor?" by looking at and learning
from history. I obtained some old issues of Pharmaceutical Representative
magazine from the 1970s, when it was called Pharmaceutical Salesman. One
article, "An Internist Diagnoses the Detail Man," caught my attention.
In the interview, the internist said he thought five to seven minutes
was plenty for a detail -- and this was back in the '70s! The interview
highlighted several points you may consider when approaching a clinical
dialogue with a physician:
* Canned speeches grate on physicians' nerves.
* Doctors want reps to pick out the information that's most relevant to
the doctors, especially information that they are too busy to look up
but probably will want to know.
* Doctors want results from well-balanced, double-blind studies.
Effective and ineffective interactions
How do these points apply to disseminating clinical information today?
I asked Dr. Glenn Birnbaum, a board-certified emergency medicine
physician and industry consultant, what he found effective and
ineffective in his interactions with sales representatives. Birnbaum's
perspectives closely match what physicians thirty years ago desired
from their interactions with sales representatives.
Cut the canned speeches. Birnbaum finds that many representatives today
give one-sided, scripted speeches ? a product of what he believes to be
today's suboptimal sales training methodology. A clinical dialogue does
not occur without interaction, and canned sales messages are not
supportive of interaction between physicians and sales representatives.
As was the case thirty years ago, physicians today often see asking
questions as interrupting the representative's spiel. This may become
an ordeal for the physician when representatives try to present
multiple products during a call.
Pick pertinent points. Birnbaum finds effective representatives to be
well-trained on the specifics of their products without engaging in a
hard sell. A clinical dialogue cannot occur when representatives aren't
asking physicians questions to identify what information they find
relevant to their practice. Birnbaum views this as a wasted opportunity.
I was enamored with mechanisms of action when I was a sales
representative, especially novel mechanisms of action. Who wouldn't be
excited about a two-step mutation requirement for antibiotic
resistance? Or salivate over partial receptor agonistic effects of a
psychotropic drug? Well, the answer was that most physicians wouldn't.
Many probably didn't have the time or interest to hear a pharmacologic
dissection, no matter how exciting the pharmacology sounded during
sales training ? even if the mechanism of action was touted as a strong
selling point during training. If a clinical discussion ensued and the
physician's interest was piqued about how the drug worked
mechanistically, she'd ask. (Another practical reason for approaching
such discussions with caution may be how much time some pharmacologic
jargon can consume; try rolling "inhibition of gamma-aminobutyric acid
receptors" around your tongue a few times.)
Rank research results. All scientific results are not created equal --
physicians perceive some data as more reliable than others. Birnbaum
views a study as more credible if it is published in a reputable
journal and has gone through a rigorous peer-review process, in
contrast with an "in-house," unpublished study. He may also assess the
research methodology to decide the validity of the study. Similarly,
physicians thirty years ago wanted results from well-balanced,
double-blind studies of a drug's efficacy. Depending on your
physician's preference, you may want to leave the reprint behind so he
can refer to areas of the research study he is interested in.
What is the most important part of a clinical study to present to a
doctor? The answer is: whatever part that doctor cares about most. The
answer is both painfully obvious and difficult to ascertain. Sales
representatives must understand their physician customers beyond script
numbers and market shares to see what their physicians care about most.
The effective sales representative realizes that physicians approach
patients as individuals and manage disease treatment on a case-by-case
basis. So, too, should the representative tailor individual clinical
interactions with physicians.
Jane Y. Chin has a doctorate in biochemistry and experience in sales and medical affairs. She coaches reps to be more scientifically confident in communicating with physicians. For more information on how Chin can help sales teams improve their effectiveness, contact her at jane@pharmrepclinic.com or through her Web site, www.pharmrepclinic.com.
Articles by Jane Y. Chin
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