Continuing our series on Professional Identity and Medicines Development, we are pleased to feature another well-written essay by a talented student of our 2022 cohort, Dr. Diana Grangeia.

Diana Marques Grangeia is a 32-year-old Medical Doctor who, after 5 years in the Portuguese National Healthcare System, gave up Pathology Residency to unleash her potential on Business Management and Medicines Development. Since 2019 in the Pharmaceutical Industry working on Medical Affairs, Diana is currently Medical Manager at Novartis, keeping her mission toward patients and Society alive. Diana leads as a team player, with resilience and ambition in her DNA, along with the power to believe that (pretty much!) anything is possible!

“Discuss Professional Identity and the Sense of Purpose in Medicines Development and their relevance for professionals involved in the field.”

Diana Grangeia, M.D.

I perfectly remember that one of my first activities in this Certification was listening to Professor Jill Donahue talking about purpose and its importance. One thing I understand is that we can find two dimensions of Purpose – ours and our Institution’s one – and it is extremely important that they fit with each other to generate more value internally and externally1.

Our individual purpose is what drives our passion and makes us act in a very authentic way2. To find it we must be curious and courageous enough to not only make some questions but most importantly to listen to our own answers2. For instance, what makes us proud and who we ultimately want to impact, might be a first step to start digging. On the other side, Professional Identity is how we describe ourselves as professionals, based on values, beliefs, personal experience, ethical standards, and responsibilities, which are aligned with the profession3,4. What I also come to understand at this point is that our purpose influences our professional identity by giving it context and flexibility.

These two last aspects (individual purpose and individual identity) are truly organic in the individual but then comes the need to match with the external component – the Institution – because this match increases the connection between both parties as well as the employee’s engagement, which is what ultimately leads to real cooperation and to the creation of added value5. Therefore, it is of extreme importance to find our Institution’s core purpose so we can go to work with a clear meaningful reason, not just tasks and goals to deliver. This means that an Institution must give an idealistic overview of why it exists and what it believes, so people can share a common purpose and understand the ‘why’ of being there completing a job5.

From my perspective, when we talk about Medicines Development, we are talking about impacting society and its most vulnerable people: patients. In this field, the aim of companies is to develop high quality products that are highly effective and safe, so patients have better care, healthcare providers have better tools, and the healthcare system has better results. This industry requires time, financial investment, high-performance teams, and a lot of regulation. This way, it is of extreme importance that people come to Medicines Development with skills and technical knowledge along with a strong purpose: to deliver the best products, consume less time, attract investment, create value for customers and retain talent. I believe that with a purpose-driven mentality, companies and employees will be able to face this changing world by adapting their professions, eventually even their Professional Identities, so they do not compromise what matters the most: the mission towards patients!

References

  1. The Business Case for Purpose, Harvard Business Review, 2015.
  2. How To Identify and Work with Your Core Purpose (worldclassseminars.com) (consulted 16/11/2022)
  3. Professional Identity – Psychology4u (consulted 16/11/2022)
  4. Professional identification – Wikipedia (consulted 16/11/2022)
  5. How to discover your company’s core purpose | Kinesis (kinesisinc.com) (consulted 16/11/2022)

Disclaimers

  • The material in these reviews is from various public open access sources, meant for educational and informational purposes only
  • Any personal opinions expressed are those of only the author(s) and are not intended to represent the position of any organization(s)
  • No official support by any organization(s) has been provided or should be inferred