At GMDP, we’re continually exploring the concept of Professional Identity (PI) in the context of medicines development, a subject that has significant implications for how we approach our roles in the industry. If you’ve been following our ongoing series on PI, you’re already familiar with how essential it is to define and understand one’s professional identity to ensure personal and professional growth, especially in areas like medicines development.
Today, we’re excited to share a deeply personal essay from Nikunj Shah, who reflects on the evolution of his own Professional Identity. Nikunj’s experience offers a unique lens on how PI isn’t just a theoretical concept—it’s something that shapes our daily work, our relationships with colleagues, and ultimately, the lives of patients.
Here’s a glimpse into Nikunj’s essay on how Professional Identity plays a critical role in shaping the career of medical affairs professionals:
Professional identity (PI) is the sum total of various attributes of an individual that they use to describe their profession or their professional group. These attributes include values, beliefs, motives, personal experience, vision, a sense of oneness with the profession, and ethical standards. Thus overall, PI concentrates on an individual’s professional capacity due to ones’ set of knowledge and beliefs [1].
PI is an ongoing process that starts developing during our study days in high school and university and gradually matures as an individual gains experiences and starts networking with others within the same professional group. Lately there has been mounted awareness aimed at understanding the concept of PI and its development, since its potential impact on practice in health settings have been identified [2]. PI gives a sense of purpose and belonging to an individual and being aware of one’s PI leads to great professional success [1,2]. While, having an unclear PI or not having that sense of purpose leads to lower confidence, the outcomes and roles they play become less paradigm-specific.
In medicine or healthcare, the end goal of every professional involved in medicine development is to improve patients’ lives. Thus, PI plays a vital role in medicine development. Having an unclear PI or not having that sense of purpose among physicians leads to shallow commitment, poor quality care, moral distress, stress, low self-confidence, poor decision-making abilities, etc [3]. The attributes that directly or indirectly affect patients’ safety, health outcomes, and lives are mainly the values of PI every physician brings to the table especially counting on their self-confidence, positive attitude, ability to make decisions even under stress, increased work satisfaction, sense of achievement and belonging [3]. Therefore, a physician needs to have a clear PI and a sense of belonging to their profession. Being in the medical affairs role within companies does not give us a free hand at not having these attributes. This is mainly due to the impact of PI extends to all professionals within medicine development and/or medical affairs function as the work they do ultimately impacts patients’ lives.
We see a varied levels of educational backgrounds, skills and experience in professionals within the medical affairs function since in general it is considered a multi-faceted and multidisciplinary role. Professionals from other professions such as lawyers, teachers, accountants etc have in some way a set and clear PI since they have an integrated and a set educational path. However, in contrast there is no set PI developed for medical affairs professionals since there is no undergraduate or postgraduate degrees offered globally. Thus, the groundwork that is developed at university levels for other professions, does not seem to imply for the medical affairs roles as there are no direct path to medical affairs. Also, in a corporate setting, where individual goals are measured against some metrics, organizations always face some issues in measuring the performance levels of medical affairs professionals in numbers. Nevertheless, a varied multidisciplinary team within medical affairs is needed since they bridge the gap between R&D and commercial functions. It is vital to set roles with clear outcomes so that it helps in developing that sense of purpose and PI in our profession. This can be brought about by various factors such as a commitment to ethically serve our customers, constant learning, developing professional networks and communities and having a unified vision and value for all medical affairs professionals.
Why Is This Important for You?
Nikunj’s essay offers a deeply personal insight into the significance of Professional Identity in the medical affairs field. It challenges all of us to reflect on our own Professional Identities—How do we view our role? How do we align it with the broader goal of improving patient outcomes? Nikunj’s journey encourages us to continually reassess our contributions and commit to learning, reflecting, and evolving as professionals.
- Have you thought about your own Professional Identity?
- How do you see your role impacting patient care and outcomes?
- What steps can you take to further develop your PI in medical affairs?
Nikunj’s reflection highlights the importance of embracing your evolving sense of purpose. This is not just about doing your job—it’s about understanding the profound impact your work has on those who matter most: patients.
About Nikunj
Nikunj completed his masters in Biotech from Nottingham Trent University, UK and PhD in Molecular Virology/Immunology from University of Zurich, Switzerland. Professionally, he has worked in medical communication and publication space. Further to this, he worked as an MSL and in strategic medical affairs in Abbott for 4 years and since the past 4 years associated as a Senior Medical Manager and team lead supporting the Global and US medical teams in content review for Pfizer and is based in Mumbai, India. The GMDP Medicines Development course has immensely helped in understanding and asserting the value of medical affairs team in the pharmaceutical-biotech industry.
References
1. Psychology4U. [Available from: https://psychology4u.net/psychology/professional-identity/] accessed Nov 15 2023
2. Matthews J et al. Professional identity measures for student health professionals – a systematic review of psychometric properties. BMC Med Educ 2019;19(1):308
3. Fitzgerald A. Professional identity: A concept analysis. Nurs Forum 2020;55(3):447-72
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
