When an MSL is planning for a KOL meeting, topics for discussion are not the only consideration. The MSL should also consider how the dialogue will develop through the give and take of conversation. By considering potential KOL responses, the MSL can be prepared with data points, articles, slides, and verbiage to drive the conversation to a successful conclusion.
The FDA issued new draft guidance last Friday along with a press release. Did you notice it?
No, not the one about biosimilars or off-label HEOR discussions. This guidance has the following title: ‘Indications and Usage Section of Labeling for Human Prescription Drug and biological Products – Content and Format.’ [1]
It is a mouthful, right?
The intent is to provide more concise and explicit descriptions of the conditions and populations for a specific drug indication. I had visions of infographic style labeling with clear and large icons to make scanning the document more accessible for clinicians (and the occasional patient that reads them). Nope. That is not where this is going.
Completion of training presumes that the learner has acquired the correct information and that it’s now stored in his or her memory. And for highly competitive and skilled teams, that’s usually true. Following a training, managers often assume that the requisite knowledge has been learned and will be applied appropriately. However, there are exceptions. There are many potential underlying causes that might prevent an MSL from discussing newly learned information. In this instance, we are going to blame it on failure to use prior knowledge during a learning experience. We will explore other potential causes in separate blogs.
Standardized tests are created to be psychometrically strong. Psychometrics is the discipline concerned with constructing assessment tools, measurement instruments, and formalized testing models. Many tests are composed solely of multiple choice questions. MCTs allow efficient coverage of a great deal of information and the tests can be written to assess various learning outcomes – from basic recall to data evaluation. However, there are limits to the types of knowledge that can be tested with MCTs. For example, MCTs are not a strong choice for evaluating someone’s ability to organize thoughts or articulate ideas, both of which are key in Medical Affairs. This blog posts talks about how to write a good stem for a multiple choice test.