Two years ago, I left my position as a senior post-doctoral fellow in Seattle. I then spent the summer back in Australia working though some intensive courses to get closer to finishing my Masters of Public Health. When we arrived in Belgium, I still didn’t know what kind of job would be possible for me, especially as I only speak English.

Now I have a permanent internal position with a pharma company. I have a laptop and blackberry and a corporate credit card. I work a 40 hour week. I have presented my findings at an international conference, and we have just learned that our paper has been accepted into a peer-reviewed journal.

My transition from an immunologist in academia to a pharmacoepidemiologist in industry is complete. I am so glad that I made the change.

Photo from JBird

I have now finished work for 2009. Even though I didn’t start work until April, it has been quite a long year, moving from being an immunology post-doc academia to a clinical epidemiologist in pharma. I am very glad that I made the change. I much prefer working in the team-based approach in pharma, with clearly defined operating procedures and deadlines. I am very lucky that I don’t have to attend too many pointless meetings, and I am mostly left to my own devices to just get the job done.

My colleagues have been warm and welcoming. There is no strong siblinghood of shared difficulty that I found during my PhD, but everyone is kind and friendly. I look forward to the cafeteria lunch, where the French chefs cook up a diverse range of treats. Usually I stick with a soup and fruit-salad, much to the puzzlement of my European colleagues who treat lunch as the main meal of the day. However, the chef put on a special holiday menu, so I couldn’t help treating myself to scampi and scallop skewers followed by a quatro of desserts – chocolate mousse, panna cotta, jam poffertje and profiterole.

After Saint Nicolas’ day, we returned to work to find that someone had placed a selection of mandarins, marzipan, chocolate, and speculoos on the desk of every single person in the building. Such a thoughtful gesture, and very nice to have a little sugar boost to help me through the afternoons.

Soon after that we had a small forest of fir trees spring up in the lobby. Each tree was a different species, their needles slightly different colours and textures. So much thicker than the ones we get over in Australia, but they still smell like the holidays. Often as I passed by I would stop and sniff the branches, ignoring the quizzical looks from the receptionists.

Photo from joebeone

As soon as we decided on Belgium, I submitted my resume to a bunch of Belgian pharmaceutical and biotech consulting companies. In March, I was offered a job at one of these consulting companies (“Choice Consulting”). I would be employed by Choice Consulting, but I would work at a pharmaceutical company (“Federation Pharma”) for at least three months. I would initially have a six-months probationary contract with Choice Consulting that would transition into a permanent position if my performance was acceptable. I have just found out that Federation Pharma has just signed an agreement to continue my contract until the end of the year. This means that will earn a permanent position as a consultant with Choice Consulting. After my contract with Federation Pharma ends, they can send me to work anywhere within the Benelux region, but it feels great to know that I now have a permanent position and a little bit of long-term security.

What do I actually do at my desk? I work as a clinical epidemiologist at Federation Pharma headquarters. At the moment, I examine data from a vast database of health insurance claims from the USA. This database lets me work out patterns of use, treatment rates, co-morbidities, and healthcare costs that are associated with specific drugs or diseases. The data are already there, and I do not have to slave over the bench to generate them. I do not have to work with syringes of infectious diseases, there are no failed experiments, and I work 40 hours a week. I do not have the independence, camaraderie, or altruism of academia, but I have short achievable deadlines and minimal stress. I am a little uncomfortable working in a for-profit environment, but I am learning a lot more about the pharmaceutical industry that I would ever discover from the outside. Overall, I really like it here.