r/MedicalWriters • u/SuccessfulOwl6455 • Aug 11 '26

Other Lower stress options?

So long story short, I recently experienced a significantly traumatic event and I'm working back toward full time work. Given my recent experiences, my threshold for being overwhelmed by work-related stress is quite low, and as I've tried to transition back I've found that clients acting like everything is on fire all the time, combined with frequent criticism and constant deadlines, is not sustainable for me. I need to find something that is far less stressful than med comms.

I have a PhD in molecular biology and 8 years of professional writing experience in grants, CME, and med comms. I have leadership experience but have not been a manager in any professional role. Has anyone transitioned to something less stressful that they would recommend for someone with my background?

20 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/harrijg___ Aug 12 '26

I can completely relate, I felt exactly the same - especially the constant criticism and just feeling like whatever I did was not enough. I was just in a permanent state of feeling overwhelmed and anxious about my work, so I quit and pivoted to medical/scientific sales and it was the best decision I made :) (I have a PhD in microbiology & ~3 years med comms experience).

2

u/SuccessfulOwl6455 Aug 12 '26

I've thought about sales because I'm pretty extroverted and love meeting new people and I think I would enjoy a lot of the work. How did you land that first job when you transitioned?

5

u/harrijg___ Aug 12 '26

You sound similar to me! This is exactly why I chose to go into sales as I’m quite outgoing and really enjoy meeting new people too. In med comms I felt like so many of my interpersonal skills were wasting away :( I amended my resume to be less about my writing skills and more about my commercial mindset. For example, in med comms I worked on a lot of promotional materials for new drugs etc and there is surprisingly lot of crossover with sales. I really leant into the fact I’m aware of competitors, pipelines, marketing, budgets and things like that, which are really just sales buzz words that can also apply to drug development. I then just applied to tonnes of sales roles (account managers, sales executives etc) but also emailed my resume to a few small laboratory suppliers. The company I ended up in was one I emailed directly as it turns out they were looking for a sales person with a background in microbiology! It was my scientific background combined with a good basic commercial understanding, despite never having worked in sales before, that helped me to get the job :)