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By guest blogger Beth Rogers
Congratulations! Your company has moved to a fully electronic selling platform – now you have a brand new iPad and a host of new sales presentation materials to use on it. But the challenge is how to use these tools effectively to make the iPad add benefit instead of distracting attention. Here are few tips:
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Who knew what a firestorm would be ignited by suggesting that physicians-in-training would benefit from proctored interactions with pharmaceutical reps followed by academic counterdetailing?
Guess what? Results from a recently published cross-sectional study in Journal of General Internal Medicine reinforce the notion that, despite rigorous efforts to distance medical students and residents from drug and device marketers, these young professionals continue to interface with reps and (…wait for it...) they assign increased value to those interactions as their training progresses!
By Tasha José, Biomedical Visualization Specialist
Who are biomedical visualization specialists? We are trained medical illustrators whose unique aptitude in both biomedical sciences and design allows us to create graphics that are scientifically accurate and visually pleasing. We were trained at one of less than ten programs—many at master’s level— in gross anatomy, pathophysiology, and histology, as well as graphic design, figure drawing, and computer animation. We are considered “biomedical visualization specialists” because we often envision and draw complex microscopic processes, some of which may have never been shown before, in a variety of media.
List provided by guest blogger Anne Jarrett,MS,RPh & blog layout by Mark Currier
By Mary Calvagna
“Tele…what?” you may ask. “That can’t be what I think it is.” And yet, it is. “Tele” as in telephone and “detailing” as in a sales representative talking with a doctor.
Be honest. What’s your first impression of this concept? If it’s anything like mine, “Now that’s a great idea” would not come close to describing it. I could not get past the image of my family dinner being rudely interrupted by some computer generated voice on the phone that couldn’t pronounce my last name but was trying to sell me a newspaper subscription.
I knew little about the world of tele-detailing until a major pharma company asked us to develop a comprehensive curriculum for their tele-detailing force. Rather skeptically, I started to do some research, and what I discovered shocked me. But first, a bit more about how tele-detailing works.
By Dr. Bill Lloyd, CLD Medical Director
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been two years since Larry King was dethroned. Many viewers were surprised that British TV personality Piers Morgan got that primetime gig on CNN. Gotta tell you from the start – I’m not a big fan. It has nothing to do with his accent, his political stance, or his unfamiliarity with the way we Yanks think. For somebody in the interview business, Mr. Morgan is a marginal listener.
Product promotion and sales reps rely heavily on skillful interviewing techniques. Some of you are probably saying to yourself, “I don’t interview customers…I sell to them!” Truth be told, if you’re not interviewing your doctors, you’re probably underselling.
Good interviewing engages both parties by combining solid questions and thoughtful answers. Great interviewing allows for the unexpected, posing follow-up questions that probe more deeply for the truth.
As an eLearning strategist in the pharma/biotech/medical device industry for over 10 years, I’ve helped many training organizations overcome a variety of challenges. Near the top of the list are issues with their Learning Management Systems (LMS). Many complain about the bureaucracy involved with adding courses to their LMS. Others complain about the limited tracking allowed. One exciting solution to those problems is Tin Can (aka Experience API). It’s the next generation of the current SCORM LMS concept of tracking learner progress. Here are some of the questions I’ve fielded when discussing Tin Can.
An LMS is primarily used to house learning material and keep track of which users have accessed that material. Sounds simple enough, right? But there are a few problems with this. In a traditional SCORM LMS, if you want to keep track of who’s accessing your course, the course has to actually live on the LMS before anyone can access it. In addition, the tracking information that you typically gather is limited. For example, “John opened the course” or “John completed the course.” Frankly, that doesn’t really tell you much. And when you consider the variety of legitimate learning sources available on the Web these days, the limitation of SCORM tracking is even more evident.
As a medical student back in the 20th century, I rarely had to think about finding lunch. Whatever the clinical rotation, the noon meal was routinely provided by an invited drug firm sales representative in exchange for sitting through a product presentation. Free food was exchanged for product information. Paradoxically, the least healthy food choices (the world’s greasiest pizza) would be served by reps promoting the latest lipid-lowering pill , whereas those introducing the newest oral hypoglycemics always served the best desserts!
Fast forward to today and most of you know things have changed and this practice has since been outlawed in most training institutions.
What can training professionals learn from Khan Academy and MIT OpenCourseWare? Khan Academy is a non-profit organization that offers over 3,800 videos free of charge on many different topics, such as math, physics, finance and history. Similarly, MIT OpenCourseWare offers over 2,000 courses through documents, audio and video on any subject from “Genomics and Computational Biology” to “Composing for a Jazz Orchestra.” Many success stories have followed, showing just what can be learned in a self-study environment. Topics once considered only the domain of the classroom can now be learned on your couch while in your pajamas. Below is an example of a Khan Academy lesson on types of immune responses:
by Mark Currier
Did you miss the news cycle of the last 24 hours? Don’t worry SkyNet did not go and achieve self-awareness. What you did miss were three impressive announcements that will likely have positive ramifications for healthcare, biotech, and patients for years to come. Those ramifications will also change how the sales training of the future looks. Here are the three you may have missed: