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. Dragana Kolarski. This is the second essay of Dr. Kolarski’s the Academy has published. You can find her first essay here.
Dr. Kolarski is a medical doctor specialized in internal medicine. She is currently working as the Internal Medicine Medical Affairs Scientist Lead in Adriatic, Serbia and CBC for Pfizer. She is based in Belgrade, Serbia.
“Elaborate on the development and status of your own Professional Identity and Sense of Purpose, and what it means in terms of your job, your career, and future prospects.”
While contemplating on development and status of my Professional Identity and Sense of Purpose, I’ve realized that right now is an excellent moment to pause, look back and ask myself questions about the course of my career. I’ve just changed positions in my company after 8 years of working in rare diseases and now I am engaged in a different therapeutic area.
Thinking of all the things that lead me to this point, I can’t help but remember my childhood and long hours spent with my friends playing Star Trek, always in the role of my favorite character Dr. McCoy (known as Bones), pretending to heal all possible known and imaginary diseases. This perfectly depicted my dreams at the time, being a space traveler, doctor and changing the world. Growing up brought different aspirations, but somehow when it came to deciding what would be my future profession, I had no second thoughts whatsoever – I chose to study medicine. My parents were scientists, but had no connection to medicine, so I had no realistic idea what it meant to be a doctor and work as a physician treating patients. Nevertheless, the more I learned about medicine the more I liked it and recognized it as my true vocation.
As it happens, external factors out of my control didn’t allow me to have a straightforward path in practicing medicine, so after a couple of years I’ve finally managed to enter self-financed program of specialization in internal medicine while working at the local clinic. This learning and working experience was positively transforming in every sense of the word, and I became part of the physicians and hospital community, sharing with all the colleagues the best and the worst. I was a real medical doctor and very proud of finding my place in professional environment. Unfortunately, after the final exam and getting my specialist in internal medicine degree, external circumstances interfered again, and I found myself looking for a new job.
I got an offer from a small local company that was in the process of establishing a representative office of an international pharmaceutical company. They were looking for a medical doctor having broad knowledge of medicine to help them. This sounded like a good opportunity, especially because in the meantime I got interested in getting to know the reasons behind the shortages of medicines in my country, as well as why some of the contemporary therapies were not available to our patients. I embarked on this journey planning that it would be temporary, and here I am 17 years later, still working in the pharma industry. I worked mainly in marketing and medicine in different companies, and my final choice was to stick with medicines development.
My position is country-based, and my team is small. Also, I am responsible for several countries. This means that workload sometimes can seem overwhelming. Working in my recent position in rare diseases gave me the opportunity to participate in making new therapies available to many patients, providing them with better treatments. As I see it, in a way I myself was treating those people and it is very rewarding for me as a professional.
Finally, being a student at the GMDP Academy gave me great comprehensive overview of the real purpose of medicines development. It helped me realize that I have unused potential, and I decided to apply for a new position with greater responsibility, I got the job and I am looking forward to a new chapter in my career, making life better for new patients and working on improving health care in the countries I am responsible for.
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
