The profession of a medical sales
representative is a job that is rapidly growing in all areas of healthcare
across the United States. This job requires a person to work diligently with
doctors and healthcare professionals to sell a medical product or mechanical
device that the person can operate with or use for the best nature of a
patient. As the population increases and disease evolves, the number of people
needing special healthcare treatment is on the rise. According to Global Edge Recruiting,
the future medical sales is promising as medicine and technology continue to
advance, regardless of economical issues. Medical sales reps are of extreme
importance, since they frequently make
business and life easier for people who have to worry about the well being of
patients. Medical sales reps will usually conduct the business side of
attaining the appropriate equipment, procedure instructions, and medical
substances that will, ultimately, play a part in improving a patients health
status, or even end up saving their life.
A Diverse Field
Medical Sales is becoming very popular
for a number of reasons. First, the field is very spread out, ranging in working
in an operating room to working from your couch at home. The field consists in
areas of orthopedics, rehabilitation equipment, pharmaceutical and pediatrics. The
job presents very flexible hours, benefits, and bonus payouts when quotas are
met frequently and quickly. To become a rep, there are some personality traits
that can be very beneficial to the profession. Competiveness, punctuality,
handling pressure and stress, and accepting challenges are some of the things
that can come into play very frequently. Mace Horoff writes that pressure is a
common occurrence in the industry, but a 25,000 dollar bonus check may be
awaiting you on the other side if you know how to handle that pressure in the
most expertise and strategic way possible. To experience all this, there are
several ways to get started. The obvious first thing that somebody should do is
earn a college degree, preferably in either business or healthcare background.
This will prepare you for the common knowledge that will be presented in the
workplace. The next thing that is important to do is get experience, with the
best experience being in sales itself. Continuing your knowledge after
undergraduate studies at a place such as the medical sales college, or getting
sales experience in general will increase your chances of landing a rep job
with a top medical sales company. Becoming a healthcare professional first,
such as a doctor or physical therapist, then going into a medical sales career
also is very common, since this option will give you elite experience in how
healthcare professionals work, conduct business, and operate machinery,
therefore giving a better knowledge of the products that are intended to be
sold.
Future Relevance and Importance
The more that healthcare and
medicine advance, more people will be needed to spread these new ideas to the
people that are qualified and educated to use them. These “middle” people will
be needed to not only alleviate stress and unneeded worry, but also collaborate
and conduct procedures with surgeons. Continuing education is fast advancing
for this field to fill the demand for interested job seekers. There is even a
college devoted only to the career field of medical and orthopedic sales.
Maintaining positive relationships with doctors and medical professionals is
and will always be of extreme importance in this field. Tom Hacket, MD, when asked about the importance of relationships says “Absolutely, yes. I think the
relationships are very important in terms of the development of new devices or
improvements on old devices. I think those relationships, if they are managed
properly, can be very fruitful, especially for patients. These relationships
can also be beneficial for the surgeons and the device companies during product
development.” The more that this field continues to grow, the more that it will
be relied on. As its importance grows, so will its qualifications, so future
medical sales reps should be the ones that are motivated, ready for a
challenge, and help in every way possible to provide the best possible business
to all medical treatment professionals.
