Career options for clinicians outside the NHS — Dan Scott

At BiteLabs, we teach healthcare professionals the skills required to build impactful careers in healthtech. For those of you here for the first time, you might want to read the article on Dr. Anyaegbuna’s experience from healthcare to a Clinical Lead at Koa Health. In this article, we will be summarising the key parts from the interview with Mr. Dan Scott, who plays a dual role as a pharmacist and the Clinical & Content Lead at Dermatica (part of the HeliosX group). With the brief introduction to our guest, we will get the ball rolling about details on his current role(s), before diving into his path to be where he is today. 

(Note that the contents of the interview have been slightly edited to improve readability without losing key information)

What does your role entail?

As a clinical and content lead, I am currently taking on the following tasks: 

• Managing and leading initiatives between the Clinical and Brand teams
• Ensuring that all patient-facing content from Dermatica has a stamp of approval from dermatologists
• Hiring a dermatology advisor 

What does Dermatica do?

Dermatica is a teledermatology service that offers prescription strength skincare and dermatology expertise to patients on a monthly subscription for £20. We offer treatments to patients in the UK, US and EU.

How and why did you get into your current role outside of the NHS?

Though I was hoping to have a clinical-heavy career (thus choosing to do my pre-registration training in hospital), I knew that it wasn’t for me after a year of work, and wanted to be working in a more creative role while still impacting the patient experience. 

I undertook a Masters in Business, and made the switch to healthtech, where I have taken different kinds of roles, and leveraged on various opportunities over the years:

1. Helped with business development and user support at Pando
2. Took a shot at setting up my own startup by participating in the ZINC VC accelerator 
3. Served as the first Patient Care Pharmacist at LloydsDirect to scale a customer support team during the first COVID-19 lockdown
4. Supported teams in operations, production development, human resources (HR), brand management at HeliosX (that Dermatica is a member of)

Though my trajectory to my current role in Dermatica can look chaotic, I have had the privilege of experiencing many divisions in fast-growing businesses (aside from finance, which I don’t foresee delving into). My current role, which involves branding/marketing with a clinical spin, is where I feel I am best placed, and where I want to further specialise. 

How does your current role compare to your clinical career? (Enjoyment, perks, work life balance etc)

They are definitely miles apart. Here are 4 key differences: 

• Job scope and training: If I had continued in my clinical career, I’d be highly specialist, but in my current leadership role, I’ve got a lot of breadth, which matters a lot for me. 
• Flexibility in terms of working hours and times: Though I still do the rough 9–5 working hours, I’m able to work from home or have more control over the working hours. 
• Perks and benefits: More glamorous than the clinical setting from health insurance, socials to wellbeing initiatives
• Work-life balance: huge range in my current company depending on the specific role, and size of the team you are working with. 

How is it related to pharmacy — why were you suitable?

My current role is at the intersection between the skills and clinical knowledge developed as a pharmacist, and my passion for writing and communication. 

Skills and clinical knowledge developed as a pharmacist can go a long way in my current role, especially when working with non-clinical members of the team: 

• They may have the understanding of a problem space quantitatively, but where you can add value immediately is helping to navigate them through some nuances in the clinical setting that they might not have grasped just yet. 

Therefore, working in a few different clinical settings (such as primary and secondary care), and the ability to “speak” clinical terms are invaluable in my current role. 

At Dermatica, the Clinical Delivery service and logistics are very pharmacist-led, so there was a natural fit that I could jump into quickly.

How could someone go about getting into your field?

There are 4 main things to take note of: 

1. Be open-minded and develop transferable skills: Startups at an early stage don’t often come with a refined job description, or job scope can change without notice.
2. Look out for opportunities in a broad range of platforms: LinkedIn and Indeed are the more standard platforms, but look out for others such as Eventbrite, the Dots, Lunchclub and AngelList. 
3. Connections: Be proactive in reaching out to people to have a short chat if you think you have something to offer, or ask what other networks or communities that people are a part of in a role you’re keen to do. It might not lead to something right now, but they might be able to link you to another company or think of you down the line. 
4. Perseverance: Do not be disheartened or worried if you don’t hear back from people. Some people are swamped or might not see the fit, so don’t take rejection to heart — it can take a good few outbound messages to get a bite.

Anything you’d do differently if you had the time again?

Firstly, I would’ve wanted to have more confidence in articulating my skills and my opinions, which have led me to a role where I feel more aligned to my passion and skills. In the past, I have felt lost on where/how I can contribute or how I can grow in a role when I was unable to clearly reflect on my skills and goals. 

Secondly, I believe that it is important to understand how each role or speciality works individually, and how you work with them in your capacity. In the past, I assumed that I did not have the knowledge or skills to understand the job scope of other roles (such as engineering) which eventually led to some miscommunications. Taking some time to understand some parts of these other roles such as coding, and by leveraging on 1:1 meetings with individuals, I have grown my skill set while reducing possibilities of miscommunication and errors. 

What can I earn?

Moving from pharmacy in healthtech, it is important to negotiate your equivalent in the NHS at the entry level. With 1-2 years of clinical experience, a full-time position in healthtech should be around Band 7 salaries. However, with experience and time in the company, one should expect to earn Band 8 salary quickly. A higher day rate can be expected if working part-time and consulting. For those of us hoping to work our way up the ladder in healthtech, or make another switch to industry, there is not an established ‘upper limit’ to earnings, especially at the Head of Department or Director roles. Together with the salary, there are other benefits to factor in such as equity, annual leave and pension. 

How have you managed your licence and revalidation with doing work outside the traditional sphere for your profession?

GPhC does not require specific hours or face-to-face clinical time as is required for medics or nurses. However, it is required to have experience with peer reviewed and individual case studies to meet requirements. I have managed to fulfil this in my previous management experiences, or have ensured that I have logged in when I am interacting with patients in my previous roles that were more clinical. 

There are 2 main ways in which I am fulfilling the requirements with GPhC in my current non-patient facing role: 

1. Engagement with e-learning modules involving clinical developments or pathways which are ways to fulfil my requirements with the GPhC. 
2. Attendance at conference for business development 

The latter also has added perks of increasing my knowledge, and just being really enjoyable in general!

If you’re a clinician (current or former) doing something interesting outside of a traditional career — please get in touch! We’d love to feature you in our next blog article.

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If you’re looking to start your journey in healthtech, visit bitelabs.io to check out how you can join our next cohort.