In spite of the abundance of PhDs, MDs, JDs, and MBAs in biotech and pharma, we all know that on-the-job learning is really how this industry is built. Nobody goes to university to learn how to be a great CEO or manager, and there aren’t any courses in grad school where budding researchers can learn the way a pharmaceutical company operates.
That’s why it’s good to hear about the industry experience program started by the MassGeneral Postdoc Association (MGPA) with help from MGH and the MassBio Ed Foundation. It’s a grown-up version of the “take your child to work day” in which postdocs at MGH-affiliated laboratories—there’s about 1,100—have a chance to see what it’s like to work in a biotechnology or pharmaceutical company. They meet executives and scientists, tour offices and the labs, and get to ask questions about lifestyle, freedom to publish, and the various career tracks one can follow at a company. “Industry is this huge black box that academic trainees haven’t been able to see into,” says Adnan Abu-Yousif, a postdoctoral fellow at MGH who founded the program.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Big Fish Help Out the Smaller Fish in the Life Sciences Pond | Xconomy
Author: Sylvia Pagán Westphal
