On average, cancer docs in the US would much rather deal with pharma sales reps in person as opposed to online, and drug companies are hiring more reps to support a slew of newly approved oncologic drugs, even as reps in other therapeutic areas get pink slips. But external pressures are likely to further limit a sales rep’s access to these physicians, according to a new report.
As the New York Times’ Gardiner Harris has adeptly reported, newly-minted physicians emerging from their final rounds of a med school residency are much more likely to join up with an integrated delivery network (IDN) or chain of privately-owned clinics, than join or start a private practice. The reasons for this are numerous – private practices, for financial reasons, are being sold into aggregated networks, so basic job availability is one part of it – but importantly, lifestyle changes like the need to balance family responsibilities evenly between partners have made the prospect of working 60 or 80 hours a week to build up a private practice untenable, or at least undesirable, for many new doctors.