Francie Moehring

Francie Moehring, PhD, is a Senior Medical Communications Consultant at Boston Strategic Partners. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and her PhD in Neurobiology from the Medical College of Wisconsin. During graduate school, Francie was a consultant through Catalyst BioConsulting and also started Freelance writing through the Pain Research Forum. She has earned many awards including the American Pain Society Young Investigator Travel Award 2019, 1st place Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, and 2018 Best Early Career Basic Science Poster from the American Pain Society.

Can you describe your academic and professional background? What path led you to pursue this field?

I started out my undergraduate degree thinking I would be going to medical school in the distant future. I was always very interested in finding ways to help people. Through my biology and psychology classes that I took at UW-Milwaukee, I learned to gain a deeper understanding and passion for the field of Neuroscience and also learned that I could be helping people by getting a PhD rather than an MD. Therefore, I decided to apply for PhD programs with a neuroscience focus. Ultimately, I ended up attending the Medical College of Wisconsin for my PhD, where I studied how we sense touch and pain under the guidance of Dr. Cheryl Stucky.

How did you find this particular position, and what was the hiring process like? Is there a typical structure for this in your field?

I was actually contacted by an engagement manager at Boston Strategic Partners, who noticed my LinkedIn profile and asked me if I was interested in changing positions. This perfectly coincided with me actively looking and applying for positions while I was doing a postdoctoral fellowship. 

The hiring process was a 3-step interview process with two homework assignments between each of the steps. The homework assignments were focused on assessing my writing skills (under a tight deadline) as well as critical thinking and reasoning skills. I would say that most medical writing specific positions do involve some sort of homework assignment where companies can assess your specific writing skill. The type of assignment varies a bit between the different companies, but it is usually a good way to tell the applicant what a typical day to day activity in the job could look like. Additionally, companies usually want to see writing samples of the work that you have done in the past.

Can you tell us about your current responsibilities? What is a typical day or week like in your role?

My day to day responsibilities in my current roles differ greatly from week to week (or even day to day). Typical projects include, but are not limited to, writing and developing whitepapers, abstracts, posters, manuals, patient brochures, slide decks, publications, and literature reviews. We often work on projects with tight deadlines, and thus, what I might have planned for the week can change if another project team needs my help.

What do you enjoy about your current job and work environment?

I really like the team-based approach that our company has. We all work together and help each other out when needed. Additionally, this allows us to lead some projects and then play more of a supporting role on another project. 

In addition to that, I do enjoy that my job is a remote position. While I originally was a bit worried about the all remote approach, I have to say that I enjoy it very much. My colleagues are very open to quick check-in calls and therefore are just a google hangout chat or google hangouts call away if help is needed.

Do you have any professional plans for the future?

I am not 100% sure yet where my career path will lead me, but what I do know is that I really love medical/science communications and that I would like to keep working in that field. I could see myself working at my current company for quite some time, as our work does not get boring because I get to work on a number of different projects and disease states at once. 

At the same time, I could also see myself working for a pharmaceutical company where I would work with vendors to create these science communication pieces that I am currently developing. Only time will tell where I will end up 5-10 years from now.

What activities, internships, or organizations would you recommend someone get involved with to help them break into this field?

For anyone interested in medical communications I would recommend that you find ways to write things besides simply the first and co-author publications that one is working on while being a PhD student or postdoctoral fellow. When our company is hiring, we are always looking for people who might have had a bit more experience than a typical a PhD student or postdoc. Find ways to stand out and differentiate yourself from the crowd. Even if that is by starting your own science blog. 

For example, I had gotten involved in science communications through a program at a conference where I became a correspondent for the conference, which then led to me being hired to write some articles as a freelance science writer.

Do you have any final words of advice for those navigating these career questions? Is there anything you would have done differently given what you know now?

Listen to yourself and find out what you are truly passionate about while pursuing your PhD. Most of us can usually tell what the most enjoyable parts of our days are. For me, this was talking to other scientists and finding ways to describe what they are so passionate about in ways that a scientist from a different field or even the lay audience could understand. Additionally, I really enjoyed writing, editing, making figures and posters; being creative. 

The one piece of advice I would give is get comfortable networking with people and keep an up to date LinkedIn profile, especially if you are interested in non-academic positions. The company I work for today found me because of my LinkedIn profile, thus you never know how many recruiters are out there looking for someone with your skill set! Additionally, don’t be scared or shy to reach out to people on LinkedIn if they hold the job title that you are interested in. Most people are happy to share their experience of how they were able to get that position, and what their day to day looks like.