DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

To start, don’t refute the following; I am not writing it for outside validation. I have identified an irrefutable (within my own mind) concept regarding the outward me: I am not now, nor will I ever be, Beautiful. That is not my particular look. With my diminutive stature and miniature features, this self is a candidate for only Cute, Pretty, and their sister synonyms. So if there is an aesthetic aim, I have the greatest odds for success in shooting for something other than Beautiful as a classification.

And I am truly okay with that.

That said, my particular visual brand becomes problematic and even uncomfortable at work, for I work in a Beautiful profession—if you take to the stereotype, as so many outsiders (and insiders, for that matter) do.

At a conference in Vegas this weekend, during our down time, I had the opportunity to examine the other drug reps lounging at their booths. It took a head shake and significant blink to remind myself that I wasn’t thumbing my way through a fashion glossy. Tall, lean, busty, Beautiful chicks and [honestly] Beautiful men, each and every one decorated with only the most flattering and fashionable attire and accessories.

It’s enough to make a gauche, short, flat-chested, yet Cute cohort consider diving beneath the booth to wait out the rest of the conference below the table with the surplus clinical studies.

It’s a Beautiful profession.

With the rep at an adjacent booth who was too kind and intelligent to apply Intimidating to, I discussed this observable fact. He made an interesting comment: because of what this profession looks like from the outside and the image that reps sometimes foster, this job and its responsibilities and influences are often misconstrued. (A topic which you do not want to get me lit over; we could talk/argue/discuss/review that all the live long day.*) Outsiders see good looking people in new (or relatively new) cars flitting in and out of doctors’ offices and they perceive pharmaceutical sales as a cushy, leisurely job for folks easy on the eyes. They believe to do the work it takes nothing more than decent looks and a college degree.

Truth be told, they are partially correct. The bare minimum to get a phone interview: a college degree, and whether or not anyone will admit it, to get past the second or third interview, one cannot have, say, an offensive appearance.

But the other part is the part they don’t see. The less pretty and fun looking part. They don’t see the hours and hours of training and study required to be able to speak intelligently about multiple disease states to professionals who went to schoool for eight thousand years to learn to treat those diseases and have been doing so for 20 years.

They don’t see the mountains of administrative work the FDA requires for full compliance with their regulations.

They don’t see reps heaving heavy dusty boxes of samples in their storage unit, trying to get the right samples into their trunks without destroying their professional attire.

They don’t see the annoying and aggravating conversations with ignorant strangers, friends, and random patients regarding the cost of medications.

They don’t see the time(s) you cried in the sample closet. (We've all done it at least once, and if you meet a rep who denies it, trust me: they are lying to you.)

They don’t see the sometimes paralyzing fear of that arrogant, genuinely unkind doctor you have no choice but to see.

They don’t see the nights before an interaction with an important physician, up late trying to comprehend and remember a particular NEJM study and endeavoring to wrap your tongue around its relevance to your drug class.

They don’t see the 6AM flight to get to a meeting you won’t be released from until 9PM that night. Same schedule: three days.

They don’t see the tight situation that can occur when encountering your competition in a waiting room.

They don’t see the eight hours standing at a convention booth (in 4 inch heels) mobbing doctors, and sounding quite a bit like a busted vinyl.

Thus, as with anything else, drug sales, as a legitimate profession (rather than selling smack in a condemned, graffitied shack), is quite a bit less glamorous that what it appears to be.

*Don’t fret, on this here blog I do not intend to review or discuss the broadly protected misconceptions regarding the pharmaceutical industry, the role of drug reps, the cost of medications, and who you should actually be blaming your problems on.