Currently available courses:
Foundation Courses:
Specialist Courses:
These course are available as public training courses or are held in-house as required
To register online for any of these courses, please click here.
2-day course
Date of next public course: 1-2 April 2003
Location: The Node Conference Centre, Codicote, Hertfordshire, UK
This course is designed to compliment and expand on the company-specific training that is given to new starters in the Medical Information Department.
This is a 2-day course for those in the early stages of their careers, or for those who are considering a move into Medical Information. The course is also valuable for those in other disciplines – such as Regulatory Affairs or Drug Safety – who require a clearer understanding of the overall Medical Department environment in which they are operating.
MI-Basics is designed to give a clear, basic understanding of the Industry and how Medical Information plays a key part in the support of a company’s products. It also provides an introduction to the key responsibilities of a Medical Information Officer.
Topics covered within this course include:
Knowledge Development
- Legal & ethical boundaries
- The functions of Medical Information
- Pharmacovigilance
- An introduction to effective collaboration with the key Departments with which Medical Information interacts
- Sources of Information
Skills Development
- Effective call handling
- Communication & listening skills
- Telephone skills
- Good record keeping
- Answering the enquiry
- Sources of information
- Writing and verbal skills
- Tailoring your response
- What not to say
- An introduction to dealing with patients
Personal Development
- Projecting a professional image
- Time management
- Stress management & post call analysis
Please click here to register online for this course.
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2-day course
Date of next public course: 13-14 May 2003
Location: The Node Conference Centre, Codicote, Hertfordshire, UK
This course is designed for those who have a basic experience of Medical Information and need to develop their wider knowledge and skills to facilitate career progression.
This is a 2-day course that focuses on ensuring a broader understanding of key skills such as “working smarter”, customer service, copy approval and SOPs and working practices. It also develops a clearer insight into the broader issues relating to Medical Information, such as the drug development process through to product launch, and the changing environment within which Medical Information is operating. Personal development builds on areas such as assertiveness skills and career development.
Topics covered within this course include:
Knowledge Development
- Drug Development
- Clinical Research
- The Regulatory process
- Health Economics and Evidence Based Medicine
- Quality Assurance
- An introduction to launching a new product onto the market
Skills Development
- SOPs and Working Practices
- Working with Marketing & Sales
- Copy approval
- The changing NHS environment
- Training the Representatives and responding to their evolving demands
- Customer Service
Personal Development
- Basic presentation skills
- Assertiveness skills
- Team working
- Objectives and appraisals
Please click here to register online for this course.
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3-day course
Date of next public course: 11-13 November 2003
Location: The Node Conference Centre, Codicote, Hertfordshire, UK
Managers in Medical Information often find themselves in that role without any formal training. And yet modern management can be extremely challenging – ever tougher targets without any increase in headcount. How would your staff and other Managers around you rate your management skills?
This 3-day course is designed with these points in mind. Recognising that generic management training can be too broad for the needs of managers in Medical Information, this course relates management issues and training to the specific Medical Information arena.
The course is for those making the transition from Medical Information specialist to Team Leader or Manager, or for established Managers who require formal training at management level with a specific focus on Medical Information. This course is also valuable as a refresher for Managers who want to build on their current knowledge and ensure that they are using their management skills effectively in their day to day interactions.
Topics covered within this course include:
People Management
- Managing people
- Personality styles
- Conflict management
- Career development and appraisals
- Coaching skills
- Team building
- Recruitment
Operational Management
- Defining your role within the organisation
- Budgets and basic accounting
- Crisis management
Strategic Management
- Service levels & monitoring performance
- Auditing your service
- Promoting your service
- Managing change
- Prioritising services
- Working under increasing restraints
Personal Development
- Delegating and "letting go"
- Leadership
- Gaining respect
Please click here to register online for this course.
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1-day course
Date of next public course: 30 April 2003
Location: The Node Conference Centre, Codicote, Hertfordshire, UK
This course is for Medical Information professionals at all levels who consciously want to improve their customer service.
The 1-day course is designed to equip individuals with the skills that are required to deal effectively with difficult customers. Patients generally form the largest percentage, but the techniques learnt will be applicable to the full range of difficult customers. The skills are also transferable to the challenge of dealing effectively with internal customers.
The focus is not only on how to handle difficult customer behaviour, but the course also explores the Medical Information professional’s challenge – as far as patient enquiries are concerned - of balancing the desire to help against the strict limitations on what information can be provided.
Topics covered within this course include:
- The legislation and the guidelines
- Styles of behaviour
- Dealing with difficult behaviour
- Developing and improving the skills
- Assertiveness
- Negotiation
- Empathy
- Controlling the emotions and looking after ourselves
The course includes a number of teaching methods including role-play, communication games, and post-call analysis.
Please click here to register online for this course.
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1-day course
Date of next public course: 8 October 2003
Location: The Node Conference Centre, Codicote, Hertfordshire, UK
Medical Information has an important role and a large contribution to make within the launch process – and a new product launch is also likely to have a significant impact on the Medical Information team.
Planning is the key to a successful launch, but Medical Information often does not make the time to plan adequately so that the process is left to drive itself. To make its full contribution to the business, Medical Information needs to be proactively involved in the preparations for a new product launch.
This 1-day course is designed to help Medical Information professionals to prepare optimally for a new product launch by encouraging active planning and participation within the launch team from early in the new product’s development lifecycle. The course also examines the impact of a new product launch on the whole Medical Information team and explores the best ways to manage workloads, stresses and change. It provides real practical support to help Medical Information professionals to prepare optimally for a new product launch from the perspective of what needs to be done when, as well as in terms of process and resource planning.
Topics covered within this course include:
- Development pipelines and acquisitions
- Licence submissions
- What data is available and when
- Use of the Planning and Implementation Template
- Allocation of Medical Information resource
- Dealing with peaks and troughs in enquiry volumes
- Marketing support including copy approval
- Sales force support including Representatives’ training
- Handling pre-launch enquiries
This course is directed by a highly experienced Medical Information professional who has been directly involved in a number of new product launches.
Please click here to register online for this course.
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1-day course
Date of next public course: 29 April 2003
Location: The Node Conference Centre, Codicote, Hertfordshire, UK
How drugs act and what happens to them in transit through the body are key principles that form the back bone of understanding and responding to any Medical Information enquiry.
This course provides a clear overview of the basic principles of pharmacology and pharmacokinetics. It pays particular attention to the relevance of these principles in understanding current therapeutic approaches to disease management and also to the challenges of drug combinations, unwanted effects and toxicity or overdose.
Topics covered in this course include:
- Receptor theory - types of receptors and how drugs act at the receptor level, including details of agonists, antagonists and competitive binding. This section includes details of the actions of a number of different drug types on body systems such as the heart, kidneys, gastro-intestinal tract, CNS and immune systems. It also considers drug action in a variety of conditions such as diabetes, cancer, epilepsy and infections.
- Pharmacokinetics principles - including absorption, distribution and excretion. Drug metabolism, including the cytochrome P450 system, and its relevance to drug interactions and drug toxicity.
- Adverse reactions - dose related and idiosyncratic reactions. Toxicity and overdose.
- Drug interactions - pharmacodynamic or pharmacokinetic interactions. What they are and the basic principles of predicting drug interactions.
Please click here to register online for this course.
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There is little published information specifically concerning the field of Medical Information, but the Professional Information Training Manuals are designed to fill this gap. They provide detailed information on many of the areas of the Pharmaceutical Industry relevant to a Medical Information Officer. They are tailored to each individual Company but can include sections such as a general overview of the Pharmaceutical Industry, drug development, clinical trials, regulatory issues, pharmaceutical marketing, and the functions of Medical Information.
The Professional Information "How To" Guides are just that; designed to give a quick reference point on how to carry out a specific task within the Company and including any issues of corporate policy. By default these guides are tailor written to be highly specific to each individual Company, providing the answers to questions that are directly relevant to the Company's product range or working practices.
For detailed information on any of these courses, please contact PI-Develop, the training division of Professional Information.
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