From the President – Richard Sampson
Connect with your colleagues on the other side – or sides – of the proverbial fence.
Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with one of our newest members of the LTEN Board of Directors. Chatting with them about the role of LTEN’s non-commercial L&D members, I was reminded of the importance of teamwork and communication between departments.
They shared a great story about a time the medical affairs team wanted to roll out a new training and realized that the commercial training department already had a similar training – no need to reinvent the wheel! The leader took the initiative to establish regular communication between department heads at their organization, and now they work hand-in-hand to ensure that training materials and workshops are shared among all the departments.
That open communication led to streamlined training efforts and boosted their ability to maintain a strong, informed and well-trained team.
I thought, that’s a lesson for our QRDM (Quality, Research & Development & Medical) – or noncommercial – training issue.
LTEN QRDM (Quality, Research & Development & Medical) Committee
The members of the QRDM Committee work hard to ensure LTEN has access to resources and information about the value, processes and people of noncommercial training. New members are always encouraged to join us and help provide resources, ideas and inspiration.
The members of the QRDM Committee are:
- Bill Beyer, Life Science Training Institute (LSTI)
- Seth Borsuk, Valeant
- Vivian Bringslimark, HPIS Consulting
- Alexandra Castillo, Lundbeck
- John Constantine, Orchestrall
- William Ford, MD, The Prime Meridian Group
- Stephanie Hunter-Banks, Takeda
- Laura Last, Beigene
- Kent Malmros, Veeva
- Mike McGrath, Bristol Myers Squibb
- Alison Quinn, Kite Pharma
- Greg Sapnar, Bristol Myers Squibb
- Pam Stalgren, GlaxoSmithKline
Find out more and view the committee’s charter here. If interested in joining, reach out to me at richard.sampson@cepheid.com.
Learning Together
While it’s natural to assume that the needs of sales trainers, field trainers, medical science liaisons (MSLs), medical affairs team members and other departments are unique and that little overlap exists, we all know that this simply isn’t the case. Sure, we all play a specialized role in our field, but training is training. We have so much to learn from one another.
Whether you’re in a non-commercial or commercial role, think about the roadmap established above. Connect with your colleagues on the other side – or sides – of the proverbial fence. The networking is a reward in itself, and if you find yourself supporting one another, so much the better.
Help From Your Friends
Speaking of support, that’s where LTEN can help. We offer a variety of resources for all life sciences training – including publications like this – and the best practices we share are frequently pliable enough to fit all learning initiatives.
As LTEN members, you can help build bridges between the commercial and noncommercial communities by introducing our network to your colleagues. Of course, an expanded LTEN brings new potential resources to the table and new innovations to inspire us all.
Non-commercial training professionals also gain from connecting with LTEN with access to those resources, libraries and people. Check out what we have to offer:
- QRDM (non-commercial) track at the LTEN Annual Conference
- Special issues of LTEN Focus on Training magazine & Bonus Focus articles
- Certificate programs
- The LTEN eLearning Lounge microlearning
- Online resource library
- Podcasts & webinars
- Our QRDM Committee – join us to help build new programs and activities for non-commercial LTEN members! See sidebar for the current QRDM Committee members.
LTEN is your hub for connecting with life sciences training professionals from across the spectrum of our industry. Take advantage of your membership and be sure to reach out to your peers to find out what we can learn from each other.
Richard Sampson is president of the LTEN Board of Directors and vice president, global training & development, global commercial operations, for Cepheid. Email Richard at richard.sampson@cepheid.com.
