An OB/GYN’s transition to the MSL Role
Swati Shah is an OB/GYN that transitioned to an MSL (Medical Science Liaison) role after approximately 20 years of practicing in a variety of settings including a community teaching hospital, Planned Parenthood and locum tenens. During her first ten years in practice at the community teaching hospital she also attained her Master in Public Health (MPH) in Maternal and Child Health.
After completing her MPH she transitioned to a part-time role at Planned Parenthood (successfully negotiating her way out of a non-compete). Planned Parenthood was her first foray into a non-clinical role. During this time, she also worked part-time for the City of New Orleans working with Healthy Start, a federally funded program to reduce fetal and maternal mortality.
She then moved into locum tenens work and had the opportunity to work all over the country including Maine, Arizona (where she worked on The Navajo Nation), and Hawaii. Locums opportunities slowed and she became an OB Hospitalist in 2015. She thought being a hospitalist was her “dream job” but quickly realized the role was not for her and she was not enjoying the work.
She decided to explore other options and attended the SEAK conference in 2017 where she walked away with 10 ideas of potential career paths to pursue and followed the conference by hiring Michelle Mudge-Riley as a coach.
Where does the MSL role come in? Well, in 2012 an MSL invited her to lunch and she said “YES”. Another MSL whom she met at that lunch and had forged a professional relationship with over time, reached out years later and ultimately asked how she was doing in her OB Hospitalist job. She expressed her lack of fulfillment in the job and he asked her if she would consider an MSL role at Merck. She jumped at the chance and now is 3 years into the role at Merck.
What is her MSL role?
MSL, Women’s Health/contraception/Gardasil vaccine
What does she do as an MSL?
Swati described the on-boarding process at Merck first… 3 months before she was “in the field”. The three months consisted of training and “on-boarding”; this included role-play, training in compliance, ethics, and diversity & inclusion.
Now that she is “in the field”, she covers multiple states in the Southeast including Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona. She is a topic-expert for her MSL peers given her OB/GYN expertise.
A typical week includes Mondays and Fridays usually being “office days” where she plans her travel, finalizes appointments with the physicians that are on “her roster”, and completes documentation including expense reports. On her travel days, she has a rotating schedule of seeing approximately 60 physicians approximately every 10 weeks. She explained it like this: “6-8 appointments in 8-10 major metro areas… if you see 6 physicians in 10 cities, that is 60 physicians on a rotating schedule every 10 weeks”. On the days she is visiting her physicians, she is discussing relevant disease topics and/or topics related to the products she supports. For example, she explains during Covid, an important topic of discussion was how to continue to provide contraceptive healthcare. “During the eleventh and twelfth weeks, you have conferences, company meetings and/or vacation time”.
When asked about what makes the job fulfilling for her, she included the following:
“meeting with the most brilliant-minded and fascinating people”
Family planning is a passion for Swati and the physicians she is meeting with share that passion with her; they care about championing women’s rights and causes. Causes such as providing contraceptive care to all and providing for the under-served.
When we discussed the challenges of the role she shared:
“have to be able to deal with change easily”; cancelled flights is one experience she deals with rather often.
Her tips for those considering transitioning to a MSL role include:
- time management is important – be a good judge of time, allow for “fudge time”
- be open-minded and flexible – have to be savvy and adaptive to deal with flight changes, cancelled appointments, etc.
- speak with MSLs and sales representatives at congresses – don’t avoid the exhibit hall!
- you CAN be an introvert and still be an MSL (Swati is NOT an introvert but she knows MSLs that are; describing one as “a little shy, but eloquently spoken”
- back to the flexible and adaptable… she has had to add new states to her territory, she has had to change her “roster” list to include a different mix of OB/GYNs and other providers such as pediatricians, adolescent medicine, NPs, PAs, etc. –