Darshan
Hey everyone, welcome welcome to another episode of DarshanTalks. I'm your host, Darshan Kulkarni, it's my mission to help patients trust the products they depend on. As you may know, I'm an attorney. I'm a pharmacist, and I advise companies with FDA regulated products. So if you think about drugs, you wonder about devices obsess over pharmacy, or ponder over cannabis, this the podcast for you. I do have to emphasize I'm an attorney. So I do have to say this is not legal advice. I have my guests on here. It's not clinical advice. But I do these podcasts, these videocast these live streams because they are super fun. I get to talk to talk to friends talk to really smart people. And I find myself learning something new each time. So it'd be great to know if you're actually learning something. So if you like what you hear, please like leave a comment, please subscribe. And if you know someone who benefit from this, and I know I'm going to have a few different people who will please share. So if you want to reach out to me, you can always find me on Twitter darsan talks or just go to our website at DarshanTalks calm. Our guest today is someone actually I've known for several years I've actually known him in before his current role. And and he is a as a friend, I have to say this, he's unfortunately extremely charming and really smart. And that that really bothers me. But But, but but if you care about what, what medical science liaisons do, and if you care about the, the idea, I'm trying to figure out what MSL is because I actually had this conversation very recently with someone. And they were basically like, aren't they supercharged salespeople is like new. That is not what they are. But that was a physician who said that to me, so that that role is extremely misunderstood. And they thought that they're not super. The way she phrased it to me was they're not salespeople, wink, wink, right? And they're like, Oh, no, there's no wink wink in that. But but so if you are in, in the sales world, and you're trying to learn from people, if you are in the medical affairs world, and you're going, how are other people doing this, this is the conversation for you. Our guest today is this is a senior MSL at alexian. Just to be very clear, he does not represent alexian does not represent their opinions. These are all his individual opinions. Ladies and gentlemen, our guest for today, Dr. David Johnson, how are you doing?
David
I'm Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really excited to have this conversation.
Darshan
I mean, you start off first, by by making me look bad by having a pocket square. It's really friggin unfair. But having said that, I've known about it for 20 minutes now because we're waiting for the thing to come on. And I was still too lazy to put on a pack the pocket square so that I feel like this one's on me at this point. So So what let's talk a little bit about your journey. And you. I've known you for I know, it was definitely since we worked with the hospital together. But I can't remember if we knew each other before that may or may not have. Do you remember?
David
I don't think we did I mean, you know, pharmacy, you know, for for pharmacists out there, and really probably in all different medical persuasions. your profession is so small that if you didn't know the person, you knew the person who knew the person and so confused about Didn't we go to preschool together pharmacists for, you know, a few years. So I think that's probably it, but I think it was when we, you know, move the move on and get together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Darshan
But the question is, you're doing something different now. So can we start from the first question, because we actually have friends who work at our, at the game, we work that we're asking this question right now? How do I become a medical science liaison? And should I become a medical science liaison? So what was your experience?
David
So I think your second question, really is the top question should I write you know, because I think you get to a point in your career as a pharmacist or physician or you know, a PhD researcher and you really want to be doing all of the things that you like, and that you love to do. And for me, it was what do I like to do? I love science. We were talking earlier and I you know, I'm a nerd, you know, and we are everybody listening to this podcast is a nerd probably. So we love science, love to talk about science. And then you have the other extra piece that I think fits into the MSL world is do you like to be social with people? And do you like science to be the kind of playing field in which your social with folks because you know being an MSL really is that it's about being social, but social enough to be able to have this high level scientific conversations in a casual way, and make people be comfortable with that dynamic. And then also developing those types of relationships, not in the short term, but in the very long term, which I hope is something that we'll talk about is just kind of relationship development and how that is a trajectory, a long trajectory versus, you know, a Richard Branson straight up to the space kind of trajectory, thinking about current affairs. But so I think, you know, figuring out if that's for you is number one. Now, how do you get there, this is a conversation that I love to and actually I gave a talk to students at University of Pittsburgh pharmacy school, about a year ago, right before the world closed. And, you know, my topic was about going from the clinical role into a medical sciences met affairs role. And, you know, I talked about my journey, and you know, gave some stories from that standpoint. But my last slide two, that is one of those slides that has 1000 different, you know, rivers going into the ocean, because really, you can take whatever skill you have, and become, you know, an advocate for science and patients. And that's really what it's about, is saying, what, what am I doing? Do I want to be talking advocating learning being on the forefront of development of different science therapies for patients and physicians? And, you know, what skills can I leverage? What skills can I leverage that I have right now, to go through that direction. And then of course, there are lots of different formalized ways you can do that with different societies and associations that kind of give you specific metaphors training, I didn't do any of that. I, I leverage two things. Number one, I leveraged the role that I had, so I'm a transplant pharmacist by training. And in that role, you're collaborating with physicians, learning new science, dealing with rare diseases, talking to patients and their families about therapies. So that was, you know, teaching students, medical students, residents, fellows, all of that. So that's which is essentially what medical science liaisons do. And and I will, you know, forever say that you need to network with people who can get you there. So the person who let me in the door quote unquote, was a mentor, former transplant pharmacists from alexian, who is gone to another company now. But and she was extremely pivotal to my to not just me going getting into the pharmaceutical industry, but pivotal, and just teaching me how to be a good MSL, I would say her name, but I don't have permission to say her name. So I'll but she knows who she is. And she's incredible.
Darshan
So that's really interesting. But now I, I spoke to, again, a former coworker of ours, and I met her over the weekend, I was at the beach, and I know you were you were having a little bit of a vacation yourself. And she was telling me that she really wants to try new opportunities. And she keeps telling me, it's so hard to get in. And on one hand, she absolutely desperately wants to do this. And on the other hand, she's going, I don't know, I feel like it's working for the dark side. And I'm kind of going well, there's so much to unpack there. So if you are responding to her, what would your reaction be? Is it the dark side? And is it a step she should consider? And why should she consider it?
David
Got it. Um, so I feel like I have had this conversation with her, not her but other people. You know, everybody's always asking this question. Number one isn't the dark side. It's a business you know, just like medicine in the hospital is a is a business at the at the end of the day. I think what makes being an MSL really great and allows you to kind of reconcile those, you know, am I doing this for the dollar or am I doing this for the people is your role and your regulatory role is to have a firewall between commercial there are things that I cannot tell commercial people. There are conversations that I have with clinicians and scientists that I can't disclose with the commercial or sales side of things. My job isn't to make sure that a clinician that I talked to is selling my job is to make sure that if they decide to make a choice for a patient that they are most well informed with the data That is available from them, you know, the newest clinical trials, and then also to give them an understanding that they can also be a part of this development of drugs and the you know, the move moving forward, this indication of disease state that we may be studying. So really kind of have them partner in there. So I really think the relationships that we build are very scientific in nature. And it really helps you at the end of the day sleep and feel clean, you know, I never feel like I'm doing anything bad. from this standpoint. In fact, I joke with this all the time, you know, one of the reasons I went into transplant was because I love to work with people, I love to be on teams, there's a cover of the American Journal of transplantation at some time in like 2013, or something like that, that says transplant, the ultimate team sport. And in many ways it is that's how you have to work in order to be a great transplant team, I kid you not, I feel more of a part of a team on my team than I did on previous teams. And that's what I love about being in the role that I am now because I really feel like I have an impact that's extremely broad and extremely patient facing.
Darshan
So you talk about being extremely patient facing you talk about bringing new innovative therapies to the market so that patients can benefit. To that end, you had a really interesting experience today, where you were helping a individual, and I'm trying to avoid the word caol. But we had a whole discussion about this, and we'll talk about that as well. But you help the caol talk about the importance of diversity in clinical research. Now, here's my first question about that. My first question about that is, the FDA says it's important. I've had several guy interviews with people talking about the importance of diversity. But are you sick about talking about diversity? And like, shouldn't we be shouldn't? Shouldn't we have reached a point by now the amount of times we've talked about diversity? Where it's not a question anymore? Like, isn't this something that should have been handled already? And if not, why not?
David
I mean, that's, that's a great question. So, you know, in my mind, I hear the question is, shouldn't we have figured out all these problems by now? And like, Yes, we should have? Yeah, of course, we should have. But it's not the should have question. It's the headway? And I think the clear answer to that is we haven't figured out all the answers to some of these problems that plague us as a society. And you know, I think right beneath your question comes into the not that you're necessarily asking this, but I think a lot of people might be thinking this is, do we have to talk about diversity again? And, you know, I think that, in and of itself tells you, you know, we really need to educate people on why the importance of this isn't just a social feelgood type of thing, or isn't just, it isn't just social, and things that feel good, these, we are a social, you know, Animal, a social people, everything that we do socially affects us in every single way. Medicine, other science, economically, judicially. You know, it crosses the gamut. So one of the things that our speaker who spoke to our group, globally, actually, it was a it was a, it was a company wide conversation that we have with this clinician, you know, he really artfully laid out all those aspects and why they are important from a research standpoint, because if you don't have diversity in clinical studies, you're really not developing the medicines for people, you're developing the medicines for a person or a group, potentially, but you're not the medicine developed the medicines for people. And I think we see that especially right now, we're in a standpoint of where we want to give a medicine to a large group of people. And there are many good reasons why people are potentially skeptical. I'm not saying they're the greatest reason, but that's a whole other set. But like there are there are there are understandable reasons historically and currently about why people may feel a certain way about drug development that we really need to flesh out.
Darshan
So I want to pick up on something I said, and I want you to comment about this, the use of the term caol. And I already had someone who's a friend, she is incredibly smart. We've actually had had her on the podcast before. She recommended the term, the term stakeholder. So what why caol versus stakeholder and doesn't matter.
David
So I don't think it matters. You know, I I'm about you know, my name is David Wright. So you can call me David you Call me Dave. You know, I like it when you call me Dr. Johnson. But no, but you know, I think it's you call people what they want to be called, you know, and I think I haven't run into too many, I never call the person to their director there, I feel like caol is a is a, a word that you use in the third person versus versus the first. So I don't think it matters too much. I think caol distinguishes between stakeholder because everyone's a stakeholder, you know, everyone in medicine has some sort of role that's important for them. I think the K of it really distinguishes the aspect of actually the actually I think actually all those are k o L is important, someone who's key on top really moving forward, oh, opinion, someone who has an opinion, some people, if you're a stakeholder, you might have a vested interest, but you don't necessarily have an opinion about something moving forward. And then the K and the L kind of link each other together, but more fortify it in a way, and you're a leader in it, you know, all stakeholders aren't necessarily leading and pushing for and then when you go from that you can stratify it, of course, tier one, caol, or global caol, national, regional and local and whenever so I personally think it's a good industry, you know, terminologies, a little bit more than stakeholder.
Darshan
But But the reason I wanted to pick on it is because you one of the things you said was there's a reason you use it, and there's some research around it. So So I thought that was really fascinating. Can you talk a little bit about what that was just so for sure.
David
And the research isn't why I use it, per se, but I think the research is is relevant, you know, the the really great people at at the MSL society, I think it's Sam Dyer, and then you know, put together some data, I'm not 100% up to date with the data, but I remember being coming across it at a one of Sam's courses. And you know, Cowell's apparently liked to be called caol. And the conversation that you and I had kind of previously was, who wouldn't want to be called the gal out, you know, about anything and key opinion leader? That's sounds fantastic to me. So I think that kind of supports, you know, the data that he had out there supports kind of the relevancy of those of that terminology. And there were different terms that, you know, different healthcare providers, you know, some kayo ELLs want to be called hcps, or, you know, some physicians hate the term provider or things along those lines, you know, because it's just too broad. So, but I think overall, the, you know, caol was a term that kind of bubbled to the surface of all the terms that are kind of generally used.
Darshan
So, so so let's take on another topic, which I think is sort of interesting. So you talked about helping this this physician, this caol, this HCP the stakeholder to, to go to that next level and have a global talk. How are you involved in that? How did how is that the role of an MSL?
David
That's so great. So the role of an MSL at its core at the center nucleus of it all is to build and develop scientific relationships, relationship being the key word a thing, and in some way in the future relationship needs to be in, you know, if a relationship is not in a job description for an MSL, then it's not an MSL role. But so last year, of course, when the awareness of social and racial injustice was kind of at a fever pitch in America, and I say awareness, because this isn't something that's new, it's something that a lot more people becoming aware of. Right. And so when, when that cap in a lot of companies, including ours, although you know, we had been very, on the forefront of non forefront, but we certainly I think, from what I have seen in working with my colleagues have been very open and very accepting about talking and having these discussions and doing all these things. But anyways, one of the things that I do in my role is I lead Journal Club discussion. And so like any Journal Club, we're talking about science or whatever, you know, the medical literature that's up to date, but at the beginning of it, I spent about five minutes just getting a cultural snapshot about what's going on. If it's Black History Month, if it's Women's History Month, if it's, you know, Asian American Pacific Islander month giving like a five minute Hey, this is what's going on in this group within neurology to make it really central. And so when all this came across, we said how can we elevate this and how can we make this a bit more so one of The thing that we're doing now is having a journal club that's devoted to some of the, you know, health disparities, social determinants of health, within neurology about these topics so that it evolved to that level, then we said, hey, let's take it another step. And as a part, one of the things that we do also is we'll have guest lecture series. And we'll bring in physician clinicians to talk about their science, what's going on, as it relates to indications that are important for us. But then we said, Hey, this is something we need to learn about more, let's bring in an expert, who is a neurologist who has expertise in discussing discussing social determinants of health in this environment, and have that discussion. So we did that in February. And that was through with our neurology group specifically. And then, you know, we said, This is fantastic. Everybody in the company needs to see this. And it needs to be even more specific. So we have a group within our company that looks to how do we diversify clinical trials, and really make them equitable, to have medical justice, you know, it's one of the things that the speaker this morning talked about was the Belmont Report. And I am looking at the Belmont Report, since I had to do, you know, compliance for clinical trials for a long time. So that was my bad, everything there. I know. But I didn't realize that one of the three components to that was just this, and making sure equity, and this is, you know, the Belmont Report is not a new report. It's very old. But we certainly have not utilized those words to the fullest when we're thinking about clinical trial design. And so you know, just weaving in a part of that. And so we really has evolved from something that we were doing on literally for two minutes beforehand, and then taking it to the next step to the next step to the next step. And so that caol was in my territory. So I had kind of weaved him into, you know, building that relationship, understanding what his goals were, well are helping him understand what our goals were, and really developing, and it's been about, it's been over a year since that process has begun. And, you know, one of the things I learned from a former leader of my group who's gone to a different company now, you know, one of the first things he said to me at a conference, he said, David, and I had just certified and I was ready to get out in the field. And I just wanted to make friends with every single clinician that I met. And he said, David, relationships take time. And this is and you know, today is one of the fruits that, you know, we were able to pick because of the time that was spent in that relationship.
Darshan
Sorry, that was not desired. Um, I have YouTube Music as I work. So that came on for a second. So let's talk about that second piece of this though, right? So you're talking about clinical trial, diversity, you talked about the value of the Belmont principles and how one of them actually includes the the idea of justice? And the question is, how do you see diversity fitting into what you call medical justice?
David
I think it's a key role in identifying, you know, aspects of diversity. And so, you know, it's, I think it's first to kind of go back and start at the beginning. And what is diversity? You know, people are like, oh, diversity, like, you know, if you are a shade of x color, then you're diverse. Well, diversity diverse isn't a person, right? It's not an individual, it is a palette, when you look at the picture of a whole, like, a thing can be diverse, but a person cannot, you know, a whole nother thing, but you know, a system can be diverse, but an individual cannot, you know, in itself be diverse. And what is the diversity is more than just ethnic background or skin color, its gender, its sexual orientation, its sex, it's, you know, it's Are you a single parent, Are you married? Are you What's your status, so it's all it's a test that diversity is the tapestry of humanity represented accurately. And so I think if you represent that accurately in clinical trials, then you're really doing a service for science and actually seeing what things are, what isn't, you know, diversity or you know, aspects of clinical trials that help out diversity, you know, diversity or having you know, more people who look like me in a trial isn't going to I mine's a biological, you know, fatality out to you know, a outcome, but it will give you a spread of saying we have a large collection of phenotypes in trial, so we can be confident about measures that we have, it doesn't necessarily give you a biological understanding because as you know, and all the nerds who listening now know, everybody's really smart, there's more, you know, genetic, you know, diversity in the group than in the, in the broader group humanity than in any individual, you know, social determinant, you know, race population, which is really just a social construct. But again, another discussion. Um, so I think these things are paramount. Diversity is paramount to social justice, because to spend the word justice, we don't do justice to ourselves, if we don't have the broadest idea of the types of medicine, and by that I mean science that we're actually developing in the future.
Darshan
I love that. So let me ask you this question now. So you're talking about the value of diversity talking about bringing these people in? Did you do this internally for alexian? Or was this for hcps? across the world? Oh, this
David
was internal for alexian?
Darshan
Oh, yeah. The ball now one, because I was going, how do we get invited for that? Because that sounds fascinating. Have you ever seen like, on YouTube, they have these Google talks like Google records, conversations, they have them for all different types of people, I wonder if Alexa would consider that. And obviously, there are other issues that pop up. But I'd love to hear a topic from a global caol slash state stakeholder talking about the importance of diversity, and what can you actually do about it? As opposed to like, I mean, we've got laws that that push forward, you've got guidances, from the FDA that push for it. You've got people campaigning for it. It obviously it's a it's a major goal. I guess my question that goes along with it is, and this is something you probably talked about your, your HCP talked about earlier today. What did they say is preventing it? Like, how do we know we've achieved diversity?
David
Yeah, so I think one of the things that's present preventing it, and he didn't necessarily talk about this specifically, because, you know, it's it's not a secret that it's being prevented. But I think one of the things that's preventing it is, it's, it's, it's hard, right? It's difficult, it's easy to say, Hey, we have a clinical trial, and these are the people that are letting you know, that they're going to be included in the trial, the questions that he tackled were, why isn't this happening? So it's kind of the the negative of that question, right? Um, and, you know, it goes back to, you know, why haven't these things been overcome, because there are systems that either from an implicit bias or an explicit bias, make, you know, either people who are going to be clinicians that are going to select patients in the trial to favor maybe one patient than another, and, you know, implicitly or, you know, just the ease of being in a clinical trial, you know, think about the diversity from a socio economic standpoint, if you're someone who can't make it to get, you know, a blood draw, what, every two weeks or something like that, or even every week, or something like that, because, you know, because of the ability to get to the hospital, or the amount of money that you need time off to take from a job, you can't be in that trial. So you have a, you know, a socio economic breakdown, just from that. And we know that, at least in the United States, especially economics frequently break down with ethnic diversity, or on ethnic lines, and so you then have another fault and breaking that. And as you know, you know, Mister, you know, regulatory extraordinaire, people aren't paid for clinical trials, they're reimbursed appropriately for the time that they are giving up. So I'm not saying that we should be paying people for it, because that I'm not saying that at all. But these are some of the reasons why there are difficulties in there across the whole, you know, other, you know, gamut of reasons. And at the end of his talk, you know, some of the questions we're winning, now, what can we do to alleviate those things, and he made a very good point of saying, we need to think about these problems upfront, having diversity in clinical trials is not a afterthought, it is on that the beginning of the trial is just as important is saying, alright, this is going to be a three to one randomization. And even that, in of itself, is a is a call out for diversity. So really having that on your mind about how the project or the study is being structured around the core principles that were already there, the Belmont Report that's over, what seven years old, or close to seven years old at this point, six, five years old or so. So, you know, how are we really doing that thing for justice for all people, Justice for All that's in something else that's important. I think I'm not I'm not 100% sure. But I know it's important in clinical trials. And that's certainly something that like needs to be talked and discussed about on, you know, multiple levels.
Darshan
And we could keep going on. But as I told you, we try to aim for this to be about a 1520 minute talk well, well above that was super fun. So we'd love to have you back, by the way, and I can harass you, I seem to do that with a lot of my friends from previous jobs. So I'm gonna harass you to come back. Because this was super, super fun. I, as I told you, we're going to be asking you for questions. So the first question, based on what we discussed, what is something you'd like to ask the audience,
David
I think I want to know, from, you know, this is going to be kind of a swerve from, you know, what we had been talking about the most part, but going back, actually, to the beginning, and it's more of a self reflection question. But I also want to note, too, is are you getting out of what you're doing right now, what you planned to get out of it, when you first started down your path? And so, you know, evolving on that question is, does your current love for what you're doing look like the love that you had imagined, in your first day of medical school, your first day of dental school, pharmacy, school, nursing, whatever, school, you know, art school, whatever, um, you know, does that look like that? Because then I think, you know, not to be obviously, I'm not a hippie out of pocket square, and might not like, you know, to just feel kind of that vibe, you know, a lot of this life is about happiness. And you know, if we're not, if we're not happy, then it's really hard to provide happiness for others in this world. So I think that that's the question that I think I would want to ask people.
Darshan
So I take a chance to respond. So my response to you, my life looks dramatically different from what I thought I'd be doing. That's not to say that it's not enjoyable. That's not to say that I'm not doing something I, I've learned I enjoy quite a bit, but it's very, very different. I know you know, this, but I'm a sixth generation pharmacist, I thought I would be either owning a pharmacy or running a farm. So company, what I do today is help them. It's, it's a very different position to be in, and it's a quite enjoy what I do, because I have a ton of flexibility. But is that if you asked six year old Darshan, is that what you're going to be doing? His first question would be Who are you and why are you here? But after that, it would probably be. It's not what I imagined. So I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to do what I'm doing. But I find goals evolve. And I was part of that evolution.
David
Well, I think the question is not are you doing what you thought you'd be doing? But is the happiness quotient? Oh, what are the ones I'm back in it to be? And so that's kind of what I'm getting at more than it sounds like, like, you know, we start off in a place where like, Oh, you know, you know, I'm gonna be doing this and it's gonna get worse. Are you even though you're not a fireman right now? Are you as happy as you thought you would be as?
Darshan
I don't think anyone can be as happy as a six year old wanting to be a fireman. I don't think that's really possible. I think the only one is probably like Clark, Ken, because he comes a superhero. And that's the other thing or a dinosaur
David
expert.
Darshan
I am one of the greatest lines I've ever heard. Was there two times in life? you actually know enough about dinosaurs when you're a professor of being a dinosaur and a six year old child? That's facts. Exactly. So that was my first question. My second question, what has what did you learn in the last month, let some people just would benefit from knowing about
David
oh, you know, I, you know, we we talked about these questions a little bit early sigh I thought I had an answer. And now I'm like, you know, I feel like I'm making my answers a little bit more broader than than I should. I think the key thing is, you know, one I've learned so much in the last month and I think that's like a testament to you know, staying engaged and being you know, involved in in kind of, you know, your, your world and your surrounding. Alright, so one of the things I learned in the last month actually, was a little bit about some reading this book that called dare to lead it's by Bernie Brown, she's you know, vague, you know, expert in sociology expert in, you know, group, business organization and stuff like that. And one of the things that I You know, thought was really interesting, you know, I kind of I've been learning about aspects of vulnerability, and how they apply to leadership's and relationships, you know, relationships are a big part of my job. And so I like to kind of delve into that aspect. So one of the things I've learned from that book has been vulnerability sucks. And it's awful, and you just have to get through that part in order to get to the greatness of our relationships, relationships with Kalos relationships with coworkers, marriage, real marriage, relationships, you know, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever type of relationship you're in, you're going to be exposed into a realm of vulnerability, don't shy away from it, invest in it and know that if it hurt if it kind of sucks, you're probably doing it right. Um, and you know, keep on exercising that muscle in order to develop that relationship. So that's kind of something that that that I've learned within this month timeframe.
Darshan
That's a really interesting comment though. The idea that vulnerability builds relationships is that a nice summary of what you just said vulnerable?
David
completely completely and the lack of vulnerability destroys relationships
Darshan
I don't even have a good response because that's so profound division
David
air horn when you don't have
Darshan
know cuz cuz I guess my question really is is it true I mean, I want you someone wrote a book about it so it must be true but the question is gonna grab the book but
David
you know, like she says she's a PhD sociology you know her then she's super smart Bernie brown shout out to her. She all of her work is based on her very extensive research. Um, you know, full disclosure, I haven't finished the book yet.
Darshan
That it tells you it's not done. But my, my lovely wife
David
has, and she says, I'm online with with my conclusion so far. So she's listening to Rene Brown, Dr. Brown, super smart and you know, has done her life's research on these topics. So they're based in this you know, it's evidence based, which I like to be in many parts of my life certainly work.
Darshan
I I'm just really really hoping right now that the last chapter is psych don't how long? Here's a question for this. What made you happy this week?
David
Oh my gosh. Honestly, like
Darshan
that depressing week,
David
I just came back from vacation. I'm just giving a little bit of pride No, because I did come back from vacation. And you know, I, I don't want to sound like mushy and corny but like, I love having laughs with my wife. Because it's just really fun. And so you know, we're both really busy and like COVID has caused us to be in his tiny apartment which has its joys but certainly has its difficulties its vulnerabilities. Um, but like, I love spending time and laughing with her and like, you know, we had, you know, some really great times on our trip, and that was that made me happy.
Darshan
That's very cool. Now, let me ask you this way. So let me do a quick summary of where we are and what we've talked about. So during this conversation, we really talked a little bit about and we didn't we talked about this before the conversation we talked about how you do a actual launch of a product, but then we actually got got into your transition from being a a pharmacist in a academic medical center. And how you went from doing that multiple different formats to being an MSL and rising up the ranks and, and developing these relationships and what that's meant for you. We then got into what and you still you've talked a little bit about things like the importance of being successful and the process of being a successful medical science liaison. And you talked about the science of social you talked about relation relationship up and you talked about how it's important to be aware and available when the when the when the world closed. You talked about being there for patients. You talk about things that you can talk about with other MSL, but you cannot communicate to the to sales and well and that distinction that barrier that must be kept. You talked about some of the jobs that The roles that you've played with things like having Journal Club, you talked a little bit about the last one being the social one on social determinants of health, which I think is fascinating. You then pull the rug out from under all of us and told us that this is not for public consumption. It's only what you guys do internally. I was like that. But but that was true. You talked a little bit about clinical trials. And we delve into that. And we talked about how you brought a word later. And they talked about diversity and and how you've tied that to the Belmont principles, specifically to the principle of justice. We didn't get a chance to get into a series of things, I really want to talk to you about patient centricity and planning and, and mentoring and the like, but he talked a little bit about the impact of mentoring on you, for example, when he talked about how, what one of your mentors was instrumental in bringing you on and helping you develop, you talked a little bit about also big bad pharma going to the dark side, and it's and how it's not the dark side, it's just no business and, and hate to break it to people. But if you're working in a hospital, you're still in a business. And and you're just sometimes you have more resources. Sometimes you have less sometimes you have different job description. But that's something else to consider. Did I forget anything?
David
No, I think I mean, it's Surprise, surprise, we talked about a lot, right? You and I,
Darshan
actually, we did end up talking about the importance of the term k well as well, and is caol the right term, or is there a different term that's appropriate, and someone did throw the term stakeholder? But so this was a really, really good chat. Let me ask you this, David waken. Where can people reach you if they have questions?
David
So if people have questions, I'm happy to be reached at my work email. Um, that's certainly fine. Please add them be you know, professional type of question. It's just my name David Johnson at alexian on Comm. You know, I'm happy to kind of feel things through there. If I don't get back to you very quickly. Remember, it's my work email. So I ended on that on that email. But it's, but but I can filter things from from that from that standpoint.
Darshan
It's awesome. And if you like this podcast, please like leave a comment and subscribe. If you know someone who would like this podcast, please share it. I know I had a great time already. You can find me at DarshanTalks on Twitter or just go to our website at DarshanTalks.com. Thanks, David.
David
This is the DarshanTalks podcast, regulatory guy, irregular podcast with hosts Dr. Shaun Kulkarni. You can find the show on twitter at DarshanTalks or the show's website at DarshanTalks.com
