Katharine Ryan
Ventiv Health
There has always been a steady flow of
nurses who have been tempted away from the NHS to become medical
representatives. In the last 5-10years, however, the number of nurses joining
our industry has dramatically increased due to the rise of the role of Nurse
Adviser. Last month’s article attempted to shed some light on these roles.
This month we take the nurse’s view to try and understand their
motivations for joining the industry and to get an insight into how they cope
with the transition into a commercial environment.
Why leave the
NHS?
If you took a straw poll of nurses in the NHS you would not be
surprised to uncover a list of frustrations that included lack of resources,
not least staff, lack of training and inadequate pay. With these factors in
mind you might anticipate that there would be no shortage of nurses wanting to
leave the NHS and join the commercial world. However, despite the
well-publicised shortcomings of the NHS, for many nurses this is all that they
know. The NHS provides them with a safe haven; a job for life, an NHS pension
and a chance to fulfil their ambitions of improving the quality of life for
other people.
For some, they would never entertain working within the
pharmaceutical industry. Not only would this entail leaving the safety and
comfort of a national institution but for many such a move would be considered
‘selling your soul’ and ‘deserting’ the NHS. Indeed this is
the sort of comment that some Nurse Advisers have received from colleagues who
remain within the NHS. However, of those who take the leap, very few look back.
Reputable employers of Nurse Advisers recognise that to attract and retain good
nurses takes more than a good salary and benefits package, although it is a
starting point. Ventiv Health, recognise the importance of Training and
Development and support their nurses in the maintenance of their professional
status and ethical practice. Thus nurses joining the industry realise that,
with the exception of a job for life, they can retain the rewarding elements of
their nursing careers to date and build on these with new experiences and
development that was not previously open to them.
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How easy is it to adapt?
Our
industry is now populated with hundreds of nurses who have taken advantage of
these great opportunities. On the whole, job satisfaction within this group is
high and their concerns over leaving the NHS dispelled. But their adaptation to
the commercial environment does not happen overnight. ‘There are new ways
of working to get use to’ highlights Gail Wallace, an Asthma Nurse
Manager, who has employed a number of Asthma Nurses in their first role outside
the NHS. ‘Many new nurse advisers are struck by the high levels of
autonomy within these roles and the fast pace of change, as well as the focus
on results. This requires a great deal of self-motivation, initiative and
organisation in a way that they may never have experienced before. Then there
is the new terminology, and sometimes technology, to get to grips with as well
as ensuring that their clinical knowledge and practice in the specified area is
impeccable’.
Despite some of the trepidation that the nurses may
feel on taking up an adviser’s role, there are in fact many transferable
skills that nurses bring with them. These include communication, interpersonal,
presentation, teaching, organisation and team skills. Additionally, their first
hand knowledge of the medical environment gives them a head start in their new
roles by comparison to your average new representative. Having experienced the
pressures of working within the NHS they have natural empathy with the medical
professionals that they work with in this new role. In addition, as Pam Smith,
Nurse Manager for a sexual health team, points out ‘, many join with years
of experience in their particular clinical area bringing vast amounts of
invaluable knowledge to a specialist team’. So although the environment in
which they work may have changed, a lot of the day to day skills that they were
using in the NHS will be their essential tools as a Nurse Adviser.
Inevitably though new nurse advisers will experience a culture shock. Key to
minimising this is good recruitment and training. Some of the key criteria for
selection are that candidates are flexible, adaptable, able to work
autonomously and able to cope with change. Initial and ongoing training courses
are then developed to ensure that the nurses are supported through the
transition. As a Nurse Manager, Pam Smith sees this as a priority ‘a
supportive network built on regular communication is essential for the nurses
who are often not used to working in isolation’. Ventiv Health have
supportive communication and mentoring structures in place to manage both the
transition and development of their nurses as individuals, team members and
medical professionals. Paramount within this process, is ensuring that the
nurses are able to fulfil their commercial objectives without any compromise to
their professional ethics i.e. working in the best interest of the patient.
So although there is a lot of change to cope with, nurse advisers
describe the development and experience that is gained during this transition
as ‘empowering’. Steve Burgess a sexual health Nurse Adviser found
that he ‘derived a great sense of achievement and the confidence to take
on new challenges that he may once have felt way beyond his
capability’.
Further Opportunities
For those who
have successfully made the transition from Nurse to Nurse Adviser they soon
realise that this is just the beginning of the opportunities. Ventiv Health is
driving forward the nurse agenda in partnership with the pharmaceutical
industry and professional bodies such as the ABPI and RCN. They have developed
career roadmaps specifically for nurse advisers that are supported by
comprehensive training and development plans. Individuals have regular
appraisals and training discussions with their line managers and often have
their own individual training budgets. Nurse advisers find this approach to
controlling their own destiny very refreshing. The infrastructure and support
are provided to ensure that individual’s ambitions are met. These
ambitions can range from becoming a clinical specialist or improving coaching
skills through to developing managerial competencies and taking up a much more
senior position.
With the rapid increase in the recognition of nurse
advisers by the pharmaceutical industry, we are witnessing increasingly more
senior roles becoming available for these individuals. The anticipation is that
this trend will continue to provide challenging and extremely satisfying roles
for nurses who are prepared to move into the commercial sector. As Gail Wallace
put it ‘after what was initially an extremely difficult decision to make
regarding moving into industry, I have come to the end of my rainbow and found
my pot of gold’.
Read the first part of this series by clicking
here.
About the author
Katharine Ryan is the Communications and
Recruitment Director for Ventiv Health, a leading provider of sales and
marketing solutions to the pharmaceutical industry. In the last seven years
Ventiv has successfully delivered Nurse Advisor solutions for many of the
leading pharmaceutical companies.
