Robin Whitsell, Founder and President of Whitsell Innovations (WI), Inc., and Ann Winter-Vann, PhD, Clinical Writing Lead, will present at the Medical and Scientific Communications 2017 Annual Forum March 13 through March 15, 2017, at the Tucson El Conquistador Golf & Tennis Resort in Tucson, Arizona. This forum is sponsored by the Drug Information Association (DIA) and comprises workshops specifically designed to meet the needs of individuals in all branches of life science medical communications.
On Tuesday, March 14 following the Keynote Address, Ms. Whitsell will present “Successfully Collaborating with Difficult People, Yes, You Can!”. In this candid and entertaining presentation, Ms. Whitsell will outline specific team member personalities that can disrupt a project or process. This will be an interactive session in which small groups will focus on strategies for keeping cool, obtaining information, and maintaining team rapport with their challenging team member.
On Wednesday, March 15, Ms. Whitsell is the Session Chair for a panel discussion entitled “Some of my Best Friends are Devices – An Introduction to Regulations and Documents of Medical Devices and In Vitro Diagnostics.” Together with panel members Cathi Harmon (Manager Global Scientific Communications at Eli Lilly and Company) and Hal J. Mann (Director, Clinical Operations Trial Support, and Strategic Outsourcing, Roche Molecular Solutions), Ms. Whitsell will introduce the differences in writing and regulation for medical devices and diagnostics. The speakers will share their experiences in the documentation, timeline development, and processes for this form of regulatory writing. They will also discuss how medical devices and diagnostic writing differs from pharmaceutical regulatory writing.
On Tuesday, March 14, Dr. Winter-Vann will lead a Panel Discussion entitled “How Does it All Work? A Peek behind the Scenes of Sponsor-Vendor Relationships” with co-presenter Jamie Scism-Bacon (Scientific Communications Consultant, Eli Lilly and Company). In this interactive session, Dr. Winter-Vann and Dr. Scism-Bacon will use both live polling of the audience and survey results to look at the factors that sponsors and vendors consider when establishing partnerships. In a subsequent session, Dr. Winter-Vann will participate in a panel discussion entitled “Surviving the Storm: Planning for Submission Success” with Deborah Frisby (Scientific Communications Consultant, Eli Lilly and Company). This session will focus on strategies for forming and keeping a collaborative team, and tactics for managing author contributions and avoiding or mitigating authorship disputes. The session will end with an open, interactive discussion of challenges and best practices in publications writing.
[quotes]“Dr. Winter-Vann and I are very excited to attend and present at the Medical and Scientific Communications Forum,” says Ms. Whitsell. “This meeting focuses on the cutting edge of medical communications in sharing both interpretations of regulations and approaches for best practices.”[/quotes]
DIA is a nonprofit, global, professional association of nearly 18,000 members who work in every facet of the discovery, development, and life cycle management of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and related products. DIA is committed to the broad dissemination of information among its members, with continuously improved professional practice as the goal. DIA serves its members in a neutral, global environment that operates independent of the influence of any one organization or authority.
