In this episode, Dr. Christian Urrea provides insight into his nonclinical career. He realized in medical school that he did not want to pursue a traditional clinical career. So he developed a plan to help patients in another way.
Prior to medical school, he had worked as a clinical research assistant and used that experience, along with his M.D. to land a job in the quality improvement department of a community hospital and physician hospital organization. In that role, he worked with physicians to improve compliance with payer quality programs and broadly speaking helped achieve the Triple Aim of improving quality and patient care while reducing costs.
That job enabled Christian to gain experience working with medical peers and coordinating teams to achieve desired organizational goals.
He next set his sights on a career as an MSL. In the course of that job search, he was able identify a mentor who help Christian accelerate his job search. And he found that work as a medical monitor for a Contract Research Organization would better align with his skills and interests.
During our interview, Christian shares what he learned during his career journey. He specifically addresses the following topics:
The importance of identifying mentors; How LinkedIn can facilitate your career search; How great jobs as an MSL or a medical monitor are available to non-licensed physicians with the porper planning and approach; What he likes about working for a CRO; Some of the challenges a medical monitor faces.There are links to resources mentioned in this episode and a transcript at vitalpe.net/medicalmonitor
